“PARKER PRESSED HER NOSE to the
frosty glass. Her eyes stared down the frisky hummingbird darting about her
terrace, then drifted back to her laptop and the experiment she was scheduled
to present at school in the morning. It was the magic hour, just before dusk.
The lampposts glowed as Central Park readied to settle into the hush of a quiet
snowy evening ahead.
Outside, the daring bird torpedoed
toward her face, rammed into the glass, then dashed away. Over the past several
weeks, the same bird had been performing drop-ins, incessantly rapping at her
window and disrupting her studies after school. Of all the windows in all the
buildings across the city, how had the hummingbird found hers over and over
again? And in the dead of winter! What did it want from her anyway?
Today, she’d had enough. Her
inquisitive nature won. She grinned at the bird, crinkled her nose, knit her
brows, and sent the corners of her mouth into their quizzical pattern. Could
she get the bird to come to her? Parker grabbed a jacket, opened the terrace
door, and stepped outside. A light wind tousled her long, wavy brown hair and
billowed the hem of her pleated skirt. Despite the cold, the fresh air felt
good. So pretty tonight, she thought.
Tiptoeing through the icy snowflakes,
she approached the bird slowly, opened her arms and motioned to the hummingbird
to come toward her. The bird’s white-tipped tailfeathers fluttered away and its
dainty twig-like feet, frail as matchsticks, grazed the top of the wrought-iron
terrace balustrade. Parker edged closer. Her fingertips whitened as she clung
to the metal. Her mind galloped forward, and her eyes swept downward along the
rows of bay windows and their respective cornices, all eighteen stories of
them, to the traffic plodding along Central Park West.
Parker lightened her hold and faced
the hummingbird’s distinctive black triangular marking centered above its beak—right
smack in the middle of its head. She leaned over the handrail, her tummy
balancing on the slippery metal. The bird dangled before her in the air. She
extended her hand to the bird.
Just as her heart skipped a beat,
Parker lost her footing, stumbled, and toppled over the rail. She plunged
downward. Consumed by panic, she grabbed for something, anything, but she
plummeted headfirst, out of control toward the pavement, and the terrifying
thought of hitting it…
Blackness devoured her. Pulled by an
odd magnetic force, Parker was drawn into a dark, jelly-like tube. She fell
faster, accelerating, bouncing along the curving path of gel, waves of nausea
and dizziness surging inside her belly. The unending, sloshing movement slowed.
The impact she expected never came.
She was alive.”
“In a breathy voice she whispered,
“How can I be their leader? I’m not one of them. They know it. And I know it.
“But…” she said with her eyes cast
down, “you belong on this planet. You are familiar with the ways of these
worlds. Everything here is foreign and strange to me. My real life is on Earth.
In New York. The meeting with the Great Ones proved that to me. Even more than
I was prepared for or could have imagined.”
She summoned her courage to open the
door to talk about the two of them. She searched his expression and finally
said, “We haven’t even spoken about what happened between us.” She avoided the
sparkle in his eyes and continued. “I keep thinking about you, but I don’t know
what to do with my feelings. I’ve never experienced anything like this before.
I don’t even trust my head, how am I supposed to trust my heart?”
Parker, though seventeen, felt like a
young girl. Immature and inexperienced, and completely unprepared for the
conversation with Cole she wanted to have. She had never experienced real
friendship before. Worse than that, she was unseen. Invisible to her
classmates. Not until she developed a bond and relationship with Edison and
Henley. Now, she was pushed into a role she was unequipped to fulfill, a
leader, with all eyes on her. She was uncomfortable in her own skin, which
didn’t even resemble hers anymore.
The attraction to Cole was uncharted
territory. Was it circumstantial? Was she seeking safety and protection? Did he
represent her life raft? Her emotions were taking over. “I don’t even know
anything about you. Who are you? And why am I here? Why me? My heart is pulled
to you, but my brain says stay away!” She searched his face for answers and
found encouragement in the warmth of his twinkling blue eyes.
“Parker, this feeling between us, is
just as new for me. Something came over me the very first time I saw you with
Stefanos. I wanted to know everything about you—what goes on in your head and
in your soul,” Cole said. “Now that you’re beside me, I don’t want to ever let
go. I want you with me. I need to keep you safe.”
He cupped her face in his hands and
took in her eyes. “Many have come and gone, Parker. They have returned to Earth
after helping Stefanos. But none have been you. None have been treated as you
have by Stefanos. And when the time is right,” he paused and added, “you, too,
will return home. There will be another Sky King or Queen. It will be your
choice how long you serve.” He leaned in to kiss her again. Their lips met and
dwelled in the innocence of the kiss.”
“Parker observed the police troops lining the streets,
keeping the crowd in check. As they neared Copley Square, she heard a series of
loud crackling and hissing sounds. Their banner wavered. She tightened her
grip, reminding herself that she was a city girl and used to a little disarray
on the streets. Clouds of smoke rose from the Manhattan sewer grates all the
time. There was no cause for alarm here in Boston. Unexpected incidents were
part of city life, usually in tandem with loud, unanticipated noises. They
never ruffled her. But in this situation, she had to acknowledge that one thing
was different—she had never been part of a protest holding a banner. Something
that, just maybe, put her at the center of risk.
A thick mass of cloudy air hovered
above her. Her vision blurred. There was shouting and more piercing pops of
noise followed by whizzing bursts of smoke. Then an earsplitting blast shook
the ground beneath her feet. Parker felt the crowd scatter.
Her eyes burned. She needed to look
around and see what had happened. She blinked and wanted to rub her eyes to
swipe away the charred feeling. Another blast and she fell face-down on the
pavement, her hands trapped underneath her. The heat rose from the[…]”
“Another blast and she fell face-down on the pavement, her
hands trapped underneath her. The heat rose from the concrete and the smell of
burnt smoke permeated her nose. The air scorched her lungs and she had
difficulty breathing. Every inch of her body hurt as if she had tumbled down a
steep flight of stairs. With all the strength she could manage, she rolled onto
her side and squinted, trying to see, but smoke masked most everything around
her. Moaning bodies were strewn across the pavement. A flurry of people had
scurried from the sidewalk onto the street to help.
Something had gone very wrong. She
wanted to reach for her phone, but she couldn’t move her arm, let alone grab
her phone. The cascading sound of approaching sirens whirred in the distance. She
needed to shut off the street noise and rest. A stern male voice lobbed through
the air above her. He was not speaking to her. The voice addressed somebody
else who wasn’t responding. Red alerts fired in her brain. Still, she kept her
eyes closed, listening but not wanting to hear. Competent hands lifted her.
They were firm, but not the caring hands of police officers. They were not the
hands of medics, who would have had a soft touch and introduced themselves with
an authoritative calm.
The noise from the street quieted.
She was being transported from the scene, draped over someone’s shoulder. Her
neck was twisted with her face buried in clean, soft, slightly moist skin that
had been washed with a pungent, pine-scented aftershave. She told herself she would
never forget that scent. That was her last memory for a while.”
Thanks Bea!
ReplyDeleteI hope you give the books a read. You might like them as well.
During the Covid lockdown, a friend of mine used to face-time with her granddaughter and read her the first book, One If, page by page.
Her granddaughter went on to read the next two books in the series on her own and became very interested in learning more about science and climate change.
I guess some good things came out of Covid!
This sounds like an interesting and intriguing set!
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