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THE BARRAGE OF BLASTS had ceased. The grayness of the air hung with the sober reminder the Upperworld had been attacked. Parker’s throat burned. The smell of death and decay choked out most of her faith that there would be a good outcome on this planet.
Parker lay flat on her back, sinking into the floor’s cushiony softness. Stefanos had deposited them back in the place where she’d started her journey, the floating complex.
She closed her eyes and wondered if her lashes still lined her eyelids, or had they been permanently fried by the heat. She prayed she was sleeping and would wake up feverish in bed from this nightmare. The odor, the air, and the sinking of her heart couldn’t be blocked out—this would not turn into the remnants of a bad dream. Light-headed, Parker willed herself to sit up and find her equilibrium. More importantly, where were Henley and Edison?
“Edison—Henley!” Parker rasped as she called out. “Where are you?” Cries and moans pulsed in the background. Parker swallowed hard and raised her voice, “Henley! Edison! Can you hear me? Are you alright?”
“I think I’m alive,” Edison said, his voice trembling. “I’m not sure I want to be though. What happened to us?”
Parker, blinded by the thick smoke, couldn’t see in front of her and could barely distinguish the murmur of Edison’s voice. She answered, “No clue. But are you alright? You didn’t get burned, did you? Or hit by anything?”
“No. I’m okay. As good as I can be, considering.” His voice cracked and his words spit out between fits of coughing. “Parker, I’m going to move to your voice. If you keep talking, maybe I can find you.”
“Henley? Henley?” Parker called. “Answer me!” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Please tell me you are okay.” Henley didn’t answer. Parker felt someone crawling toward her. She brought her knees to her chest in a fetal position, closing her body to protect herself. But as the figure neared, she recognized Henley—her face streaked with blood and her beautiful black mane wet and covered in soot—limp from the heat. Parker extended her arms to pull Henley in close, but the girl pushed her away.
The old eagle neared her.
“Stefanos!” Parker said, “What is going on? You said this was a night of celebration? Why would you be attacked like this? Who would do this to you?”
“I wish I could answer your questions, Parker, but this is all very unexpected,” he said, with a calm she didn’t believe. Stefanos tipped his beak and motioned toward a gaping, blackened tunnel fifty feet ahead of them. “We shall find who is responsible for the attack, but for now your safety is of paramount importance. The location of the Sky Box is not known to many. No harm can come to you there. Thankfully, our Weavers from Kokobur designed it to be indestructible. I’m taking you there now.”
His strong voice softened, and he murmured, as if to himself, “Since the last war, we thought we would never require it again.” His heavy brow furrowed, but he quickly shook it off.
“My thoughts are with you now. You carry the aftermath of the shock in your bodies. I know you have never experienced anything like this. The attack appears to be over.”
“You put us in the middle of a war!” Henley demanded. “You owe us an explanation!”
“We will talk when I return. I must go to my Roost and meet with my advisors. The assault has stopped and the Upperworld is safe for the time being. As are you. I am grateful to the Spirits of the Sky—they have watched out for us tonight.”
Stefanos fingered the medallion hanging from his neck and broke into a melody of trills, and calls. “You are extraordinary earthlings. You have been blessed with heightened intelligence. Beyond your years. It is why you have been selected. It is also why you stayed. Your choice did not surprise me, but I am grateful for your decisions. Now we will help each of you discover all that you are.”
Stefanos, for the second time, whispered directly into her mind. “Take your time with your companions. They need you now. I trust you will find your way with them.”
A trail of sparrows appeared out of the darkness. They carried cool, damp cloths in their beaks, brushed past each of them, clearing their eyes and cleaning the soot from their faces. The sparrows made a speedy exit from the Sky Box, as quickly and quietly as they entered. Henley and Edison neared one another and sat together on the opposite side of the room away from her. Parker steeled herself, wishing she could join their conversation. But just like at school, with their backs to her, they communicated stay away without a word.
She approached them. “Uh, I’m glad you two are okay.” Parker swallowed hard, building her courage to continue.
Edison and Henley locked eyes before acknowledging her. She didn’t know if they’d figured out about the telepathic communication or not or felt like Stefanos had singled her out as more important than them.
“Whatever you are thinking, whatever you think of me, let’s put it aside because we are stuck in this together,” Parker said.
“Really? Cuz things aren’t as they appear then,” Henley flipped back. “He told you something, didn’t he?”
“Nothing. I think he wanted to get back to his leaders. Nothing else. I think he’s giving us time to, umm, I guess to recover.” Parker bit her lip and forced herself to say, “Can we please be friends?” She knew she must sound like a kid in nursery school begging to share toys. But what else could she say?
“We don’t need to be friends, Parker. But I’ll give you this, we’re here to do a job. Save this planet. As long as you are straight up with us, we’ll get along. Cuz you’re not the only one with brains. I have some of my own ideas how we can help here.” Henley pointed at Edison and said, “And so does he.”
In her own way, Henley was giving her an opening. She’d take it. They didn’t have to like each other.
“I’ll say it again. You know what I know. Belliza mentioned a water shortage, and an ecological disaster. The falcons too. They brought us here because of it. Stefanos is protecting us because he does need us.”
“And they think that’s going to happen with somebody trying to blow us up!” Henley shouted. “Parker, how can you focus on some stupid water shortage when someone’s trying to kill us?”
Edison’s sweet humming calmed Henley again. She leaned against the wall, flopped onto the floor, pushed her legs out in front of her, and quieted down.
Parker flopped herself down on the cushiony floor. “I remember the first time I saw Belliza.” She figured she’d tell her story and maybe lure them to tell theirs.
Henley snorted.
Edison spoke up, “Hey Henley, let’s hear her out.”
“Belliza kept coming to my window. For months. And she just hung out there, in the sky, staring at me. At first, I wondered if it was the same bird. But weird, right? I thought a tiny little bird like that, eighteen stories up in the air on my balcony. I checked out the behavior of hummingbirds, and unless they are migrating, they hang low, near the flowers and bushes. They just don’t buzz around exploring at the height of buildings in New York City, especially in the winter. Or really anywhere.”
“Jeez, is there anything you don’t know?” Henley said, rolling her eyeballs and adding, “I just knew it! Is that all you do, research Google?”
Parker’s mind snapped like a taut rubber band back to bio lab and the incident with Jason Bender. After Dr. Stillman complimented her in front of the whole class on her perfect dissection of a frog’s liver, Jason ran through the halls at Tate calling her the “organ bandit”. No one would go near her for weeks. Parker steadied herself, refusing to be baited.
“So, this little bird is at my window just about every day whenever my parents weren’t around. I knew it had to be the same one because of her markings—the perfect black triangle between the eyes and white-tipped tail feathers seemed pretty distinct. I knew from school birds’ feather colorations are almost like human fingerprints—no two are identical.”
Another snort of derision out of Henley, and a dark chuckle.
“Wait—it gets even stranger. The bird is circling back and forth, motioning to me to come outside and on to the ledge. I’m scratching my head at this point because I’m getting a weird feeling. This is the craziest thing that ever happened to me. Even crazier, I felt like the bird was trying to tell me something. So, I opened the door to go out on the terrace. I’m wondering what the bird could possibly want from me. But in some way, I know something is going down and it feels off. Like a bird trying to communicate with its eyes. Hmmm, it’s the last thing I remember. And I woke up here.”
Edison gasped. “You’re scaring me now. Why would you respond to a bird, outside, so high up in a building? That’s kinda nuts! You could have fallen. Then, you’d be dead. And we’d be dead now too!”
“No way, Eddie! We are alive,” Henley broke in, not letting the convo go on without her. “You saw all those other kids here just like us. They came and they left. We decided to stay. We have nothing to lose. We go back to Earth and no one knows we’ve been gone. We’re on an adventure. More exciting than stupid school at home!”
Parker jumped in, “Well, I agree with you Henley on one thing—we are alive. But when did you guys first see Belliza? A bunch of times, too, like me?”
“No, I don’t think I saw her again—just multiple times on one day,” Edison said. “But she kept playing tricks on me, right after my choir practice. So, I’m waiting for my brother, Ozzie, to finish his basketball game so we could walk home together. The streets are pretty dark at night where we live. It’s safer to have my brother with me. I checked my phone, and Ozzie hadn’t texted me, so I began to head home alone.
“The timing was so weird though. I just got this ring.” He extended his hand to Henley and Parker exposing his ring finger with its hefty onyx and gold signet band. “Everyone who gets into the choir gets one. And I remember I’m just staring at it when I noticed the bird.”
“It’s beautiful, Edison.” Parker held his hand for a closer view.
He took in a breath. “It’s the sign of the dove. Peace. Ha! Now the whole bird thing…” He shook his head without finishing.
Parker could have sworn with his athletic physique, he belonged on a competitive sports team. Didn’t figure him as a choir boy. Embarrassed, she quickly chastised herself. She didn’t like being judged on appearances. Why was she doing this to him? How someone looks is not who they are.
“I’m standing outside our church,” Edison said with a half-smile, “so happy cuz I made the cut to go to the national competition. It’s a big deal. That’s when this buzzing sound went flying over my head. I thought it might be an insect or something. I tried to wave it away, but the bird kept following me down the street. So irritating!”
His eyes darted to Henley, her back still propped up against the glass, feet stretched out on the floor. She nodded to him, encouraging him to continue.
“So, this tiny thing comes flying at me, like a baseball over home plate. You’re either going to hit the ball hard and send it out of the park, or you’re gonna duck and get out of the way because it’s comin’ so fast. But again, just the dumb bird. When I saw the long skinny beak and the triangle mark, I figured it must be a hummingbird. And definitely not a species we have anywhere near Detroit.” He side-eyed Henley apologetically, “Trust me, now don’t go calling me an Audubon expert—I’m not! Far from it!”
Henley grinned and Parker couldn’t believe he got her to crack a smile.
“Next I feel a sharp poke in my back, and I’m spooked cuz it could be a kid with a knife or something. Like I said, sometimes it’s not safe on the streets around where I live. But it was only the bird—jabbing its beak into my back.
“I’m all nerved up and this bird’s making me crazy. It’s swirling in front of me. I’m getting dizzy and the last thing I remember, I’m crossing the street. A big dark SUV is heading right at me. The brakes screech and then boom. I’m in a dark tunnel of jelly and wake up here.
“So now do you get where I’m going, why I think we might be dead? You know how you hear the stories of people who come back to life after they’ve had some kinda near-death experience. They’re in a dark tunnel and there’s a light at the end of it? Well, I come through a dark tunnel and end up in this bright white-hot room. So, could we be dead?” Edison asked.
Parker stole another glance at Henley, who tapped her foot while flicking her finger with her thumb. Parker realized Henley teetered on the edge, wanting to spill her story, but holding herself back.
And something else. Another similarity to Edison’s story and hers. Edison had just accomplished something—he’d made the choir cut. She knew of those competitions. They were tough.
Parker wavered, unsure whether or not she should tell them the great news she received on the same day. Her guidance counselor had called her into her office to tell her she was the first Tate student to hear back from John Hopkins about their Future Scholars Program. She had planned on surprising her parents when they returned from work, so happy and proud she was on her way to becoming a scientist. And now, what?
Subject of an attempted assassination plot? Potential hero?
She blushed and finally blurted, “I had something really good happen to me that day, too. You guys already figured out I’ve been a nerd my whole life. But it’s weird, on the day we got here, I got a spot at Hopkins, their program for future scholars. And you got into the choir, Edison. Something we both worked so hard for and wanted so badly.”
A sudden yawn gripped her. Good lord, she hadn’t slept in ages. She couldn’t be sure how much time had passed, but the day felt unseasonably long, like those videos of the sun slowly circling the sky during winter in the Arctic Circle. She felt the crash reverberate through the rest of her body.
“I’m sorry… I need to get some sleep.” She was a firm believer in early to bed and early to rise.
“It’s fine,” Edison told her, while Henley rolled her eyes and muttered something unintelligible. “We’ll stay up a bit more and get some shuteye also.”
The main room had a short hallway, followed by a number of smaller, empty rooms separated by beaded curtains without any of the beads, made of the same soft fabric as her shift. The good news was the floor felt like it would be perfect to sleep on.
She didn’t get a chance to lay down, because suddenly a familiar, sweet aroma surrounded her.
“Good going, Parker.” The hummingbird buzzed in front of Parker and whisked her to another small room. “I zee zome progrezz with your companionz. I think you have even inzpired Henley.”
“Why are you moving me without my permission? Please don’t do that. I want to stay with Edison and Henley.”
“Zeemz Henley doez like to tangle with you.” Belliza laughed with the gentle sound of a tease. A portion of the wall before Parker lit up, with a nearly transparent view of Henley and Edison chatting. Edison had crossed the room over to Henley and sat beside her—his back now leaning against the wall next to her, mimicking her position. He looked over his shoulder and shook his head.
“How are you handling all this?” he asked. “As well as Parker?”
“I wish she’d disappear. Then maybe we’d have a chance to get out of here.”
“Forget about her, Henley. We gotta deal with the situation in front of us. Do you think we’re dead?”
“I dunno. Right now, I think it might be better than being alive in this bird sanctuary.”
“Don’t say that!” He grimaced. They were silent for a few seconds, but to Parker watching them on screen, the absence of sound passed like an hour.
“What did happen to you? How did you get here?” Edison asked, lowering his voice to a hush.
Parker peered through the glass as if watching actors on stage playing out some fictionalized version of their lives. “Belliza, can’t they tell there’s a camera? We’re watching them.”
“They can’t zee us. Only we can zee them.”
“I have no idea how I got here,” Henley said. “But, like you, I saw the hummingbird only one day before I ended up here. I did hear it droning on and on. I was outside on our patio concentrating on my submission for the Intel Science and Engineering Fair. It was the day we ended up here. I remembered because the bird’s beak kept messing with my laptop and I was worried it would take a crap on my screen. But later on, I was out and heading home and it’s stalking me.
“I swatted it away, but it came back for more, tracking me for a couple hundred feet, all the way up my driveway. It started to get aggressive. And I was losing my cool and getting mad. I guess, you’ve seen me do that. Ha!” She laughed and continued. “And the bird flew right in front of my head, buzzed around and touched my arm, and I lost it!
“I started to chase it away. I stumbled to the edge of our driveway and took a tough fall. It’s kinda dark around my house at night, too, and the canyons drop off pretty steep. I got up and the bird flew back in my face and threw me off my feet. I dropped my backpack, and I’m desperate now, so I grabbed onto a little sparse tree. The limb broke and last thing I remember, I am hanging over the edge of the canyon. I must have passed out.”
Edison gaped while cracking his knuckles. He rubbed his fingers over his hands, and said, “Then, we must be dead.”
Belliza buzzed into Parker’s right ear, “I azzure you, Parker. You are all very much alive.”