THE HOUSE WAS DARK inside and still smelled of her mother’s late-night coffee. Vanessa climbed the stairs. A spill of light from her mother’s bedroom covered the hall runner. She stopped at the door. Her mother had fallen asleep reading, an empty coffee mug on the nightstand beside her. She walked to the bed. The fragrance of her mother’s hand lotion and face creams filled the air. She wanted to curl against her mother as she had when she was a little girl.
Mom,” she said softly. Her mother did not stir. She pressed her cheek against her mother’s and let it rest there a long while.
Finally, she took the book, set it on the nightstand, switched off the light and went down the hallway to the bathroom. She turned the spigots. Hot water rumbled into the tub. Then she caught her reflection in the mirror. Dirt streaked her face, but it was something more that made her stop and stare. Her eyes looked wide, haunted, different. The pupils dilated, the lashes longer, darker. What was happening to her?
She bathed quickly, put on PJ’s from the hook on the bathroom door, and hurried back to her bedroom. She started to turn on the light, but caution made her stop. She crept to the window and closed the shutters against the night, then switched on the small lamp on her desk. She looked at her computer and scanned her room to see if anything looked disturbed.
The door to her bedroom stood open. The dark hallway loomed before her. She took three quick steps across the room, shut the door, and locked it. When was the last time she had done that? Even knowing her mother was down the hallway did not comfort her now. Finally, she called Catty.
A sleepy voice answered the phone.
“Can you spend the night?”
“Now? What’s going on?” Catty mumbled, her voice still sluggish with sleep. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know. Midnight maybe. Can you come?”
“Yeah, I guess,” she said. “How am I going to explain it to my mother?”
“Your mother never needs an explanation.” Vanessa looked behind her. Why did she feel so edgy?
“I don’t know,” Catty hesitated.
“Take a cab. I’ll pay.”
Vanessa waited at the front window, impatiently watching cars drive past her house. Finally headlights turned down the street, and an orange-yellow taxi pulled up to the curb. Catty climbed from the cab. She held a tackle box in one hand and an artist’s pad under her arm. Her messenger bag dangled from her shoulder. She wore bunny slippers and a tan trench coat over her pajamas.
Vanessa ran outside and gave the driver fifteen dollars. He waited until they were inside before he drove off.
Vanessa locked, then bolted, the front door. When they were in her room, she spoke. “Do I look different?”
Catty’s mouth fell open. “What did you do with Michael? Tell me all about it. Every detail.”
Vanessa flopped on her bed. “Nothing happened with Michael, other than I acted like a fool. Someone followed me again tonight. I don’t look different to you?”
“You look tired is all. Someone followed you with Michael there?”
Vanessa sat up and cuddled a pillow against her. “I acted like some freaky Amazon woman.”
“He saw your true self ? So what? I bet he liked it.”
“I don’t even know why I did it. I felt like I had to protect him. He’s probably never going to speak to me again.”
“Then you don’t want him. Did you see who was following you?” Catty set her bag down, opened the tackle box, and took out several charcoal pencils. She sat on the floor with her artist’s pad as Vanessa explained everything that happened, from the walk down the canyon wall to the strange look in Michael’s eyes when he didn’t give her a good-night kiss.
“We could go back, you know, and see who was following you.”
Vanessa sat cross-legged on her bed. “That’s not why I asked you over. I was . . . I didn’t want to be alone.”
“Maybe it’s date anxiety. You’ve never been afraid of anything before. You’ve only had these strange feelings since Michael started acting like he liked you. Maybe they’re panic attacks.”
Vanessa laughed. “I don’t think you can call the way he makes me feel a panic attack. You think he likes me?”
“Yes.” Catty nodded firmly.
“Did you bring anything to eat?”
Catty pulled a glass pan covered with aluminum foil from her bag. Vanessa could smell the rich chocolate before Catty removed the crinkling aluminum foil.
“The dateless made fudge,” she said, and handed the pan to Vanessa.
Four pieces were already missing.
Catty looked at her. “Maybe you should tell your mother. I mean, it could be some pervert or something. Your mom would know how to handle it.”
“Tell her I think someone is following me because I can make myself invisible?”
“It’s not like you can’t prove it,” Catty pointed out. “Sit in the light so I can sketch you.”
Vanessa sat in the overstuffed chair next to her bed. Catty’s pencils scratched across the paper.
“I think we should go back while it’s only a few hours in the past and see who was there,” Catty declared.
“Yeah, and end up falling down the canyon. Sorry, your landings make it too dicey.”
Catty didn’t argue this time.
“Maybe I should visit Serena. She might see something in her tarot cards. Morgan said she was good.”
“You don’t think she can really tell fortunes, do you?” Catty drew Vanessa’s hair in long swirling lines.
“You’re right. The best thing to do is talk to my mom.” Vanessa watched Catty draw her face, pouty lips, the dimples in her cheeks. Catty was too quiet, which meant she had something more on her mind. Finally she stopped drawing and looked up.
“Did you ever think my mother was right?” Catty said finally. “Maybe we did come from another planet and the spaceship crashed. That would explain the two memories I have.”
“The crash and the fire.”
“Maybe we survived both, and the moon is like a guidepost that tells us how to get home, only we don’t understand it yet because we’re still in a sort of larvae state.”
“Great, that’s all I need. You mean we haven’t grown our green antennae yet?” Vanessa joked. She started to laugh, but then she thought of the changes she had seen in her eyes when she looked in the mirror an hour ago.
“Maybe together our powers can take us home.”
“Your mother’s theory only works if I was adopted,” Vanessa said. “And my mother has assured me with gory descriptions of ten ugly hours of labor and twenty-two stitches that I was not.”
“But what if—” Catty stopped drawing. “What if something happened to her real child?”
“Like aliens ate it?”
“I’m serious.” Catty frowned. “Maybe there was an alien mother who gave birth that night, and a nurse got confused.”
Vanessa stared at her. “I look like my mother. You’ve said so yourself.”
“What about the necklaces? Maybe they’re like a homing device.” Catty started smudging the charcoal drawing with her finger, then stopped and stared at Vanessa. Vanessa knew by the look on Catty’s face that she didn’t want to hear what she was going to say next. “It might explain who’s been following you.”
“How?”
“Government agents. The ship might be repaired now. And they’re going to send you back to your own planet but they have to make sure you’re the right person.”
Vanessa thought about it. How would she survive on a different planet? Even if that was where she belonged. “I don’t want to leave. My home is here.”
“But, Vanessa, if it’s true.”
“It’s not—”
“Just if. If they come for you, don’t let them leave me behind.” Catty was serious.
“If,” Vanessa said. “If it is true, I promise.”
“Thanks.” She paused a moment. “I keep having this awful dream. In it these shadowy people are trying to reach me. I can’t see their faces. I wake up, and it feels so real. Maybe the others are using telepathy to contact us, but our skills are too rusty to pick up their message.”
“Stop,” Vanessa whispered. “You’re frightening me.”
“Sorry,” Catty said.
“Maybe we should try to get some sleep.”
“Okay,” Catty agreed.
Vanessa turned off the lights and opened the shutters. She and Catty crawled into bed and stared out the window at the night sky.
“I wish we only had normal problems like everyone else,” Vanessa said.
“Me, too. It’d be fun to just worry about school, zits, and boys.”
“I worry about that. It’s not fun.”
“Yeah, it’s not fun for me, either,” Catty said. “I wish I knew why we’re so different.”
“Freaks of nature,” Vanessa whispered and wondered how she could ever have a boyfriend. Maybe it was better not to try.
“It’s hard sometimes,” Catty added. “If you weren’t here, I’d be so alone, probably smoking pot with lodos on the back lawn at school.”
“Yeah,” Vanessa said. “I’d probably be a shy little mouse with a stack of books in front of my face and no friends.” She pushed back tears crowding into her eyes. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Ditto on the mushy stuff.” Catty pulled her covers tight around her.
As she was falling asleep, Vanessa decided to visit Serena tomorrow. It was her last hope before confessing everything to her mother. Maybe Serena could look at her tarot cards and tell her who had been following her and why.