WILDly (17 page)

“Valerie, I’m
sorry that we have to ask this of you. But you are the one in this
position and only you can save earth. If there was a way to strip
him of his link or powers, that would have been our first option.”
He drew a breath. “Yes, you are going to have to kill him.”

“No! It’s too
much to ask. I cannot do this!” I exclaimed. “And tell me, what
will then happen to the moon?”

“Nothing.
Absolutely nothing will happen to the moon. It will remain where it
is, jealous and manipulative and devious as always, but without an
ambassador on earth. In a few year’s time there will be another
supernova and the moon might send another ambassador. We’ll
probably upset him even more, only being able to watch earth at a
distance then.”

“Won’t that
only delay the problem? Or even make it worse?”

“It will, but
to be honest, it’ll never stop. He will never ever stop hunting
you. Don’t you get it?” Alex was upset, practically screaming at
me.

It went quiet
around the table. I turned and kept myself busy with the dishes,
deep in thought.

“I’ll think
about this. It’s not something that I can easily agree to, killing
someone, you know? It’s not me at all,” I said when I finished.

“We both can
understand that, but you need to hurry. He could attack at any
time. I’ll obviously keep an eye out for him. But I’ve
underestimated him before. Actually not him so much as the power of
sheer jealousy,” Alex said as if to himself.

I wanted, or
rather needed to get away. One moment this new world sounded so
glorious. Now it required me to do something horrific.

My link with
the earth was strong. And earth had an almost unique ability to
support life. That was exactly who I was and I felt: the very
essence of me was to support or revere or love life. And Alex was
asking me now to take a life? I couldn’t. Not even Duncan’s, in
spite of everything.

Duncan had made
me betray myself under his spell. Now Alex was asking the same of
me; voluntarily but not really voluntarily.

The breakfast
aftertaste was bitter in my mouth. I should have expected this.
There was no such thing as a glamorous world without a glamorous
cost. And maybe this was the price that I needed to pay, the bad
part, the paparazzi of being a part of this ... astronomical
universe.

“Can we go now?
I still need to study for tomorrow’s test.”

Alex sighed.
“Sure.”

Benjamin
grabbed a few loose things lying about. I went to my room to tidy
it and then grabbed my dirty clothes from the bed and my new phone
from the kitchen table.

We were quiet
and the atmosphere was downbeat in the car all the way back to the
dorm. Not even the upbeat music or the scenic drive made it better.
Or my new fancy phone.

I wasn’t ready
to talk to my dad yet either, and couldn’t get myself to phone.
Instead I asked Alex to let them know that I was fine. After all,
he was responsible for me. I rolled my eyes at the thought.

I looked out
the car window and I could feel the moon was laughing at me.

They dropped me
in front of my dorm.

“Thanks for
breakfast, Benjamin. And thank you again for my new phone. I’ll see
you around?” I asked hopefully. I liked having him close by all
over campus.

“I’ll be
around, Val. Take care of yourself,” he smiled.

“See you Alex,”
and I got out of the car with that.

Alex called me
back.

“Valerie, I’m
sorry for asking this of you. Please consider it carefully,” he
begged as soon as I answered.

I didn’t need
to ask what. I shook my head. “Alex, I can’t do this. I cannot go
against my own beliefs, even if it means saving the earth.”

“For your
parents? For the next guy on the street? For the survival of man?”
he asked.

I stared at him
wordlessly. He was still my Alex, he looked the same as always.

And then
softer: “For me, Valerie?”

He knew how
I felt about him
, I thought.
Was he using it?

I couldn’t
answer and walked away with raindrops falling on my head.

The astronomy
text book stared at me. I was in my room, behind my desk, supposed
to be studying. Only yesterday there was a moment that I’d thought
it was my new favourite subject in the world. Now I felt too
conflicted to open the textbook.

I’d done
everything but study after they’d dropped me: I collected notes
from Lisa and gave her an update, I did my laundry, I cleaned my
room, I reorganised my closet, I visited Jennifer and told her a
conjured up story about Ronald. She clearly didn’t know he’d been
in an accident.

Now there
wasn’t much else left to do that I could think of. And time was
running out. The sun was setting already and the test was scheduled
for ten tomorrow morning.

I’ve never
flunked a subject before. I didn’t want to flunk this test either.
It would jeopardise my entrance to the final exam. And that would
jeopardise my entire first year. and all of my parents’ life
savings.

I had no
choice. I had to study. And fast. I opened the thick book
reluctantly...

***

Chapter 14 –
Sunburnt

I was fast
asleep when my phone rang eardrum-shatteringly loudly next to
me.

Disorientated,
I flew up and peeked through one opened eye to see who was calling.
It was my dad.

“Hello, dear!
We’re here!” my dad said excitedly.

Uhh! I had just
fallen asleep mere seconds ago. “Hi, Dad,” I answered sleepily.

“Were you
sleeping? Sorry, love. We’re downstairs. Whenever you’re
ready.”

“Okay, I’m on
my way. Just give me a moment, please?”

Somewhere in
the middle of the test week, all the studying and limited sleep and
food had made me forget the date and time, my dad had, promised to
pick me up after my final test.
least I wouldn’t have to
drive
, I thought, so I agreed gratefully.

It had been a
rough week, studying and writing and studying and writing, with a
few morsels of food and sleep only here and there. There wasn’t
time for my friends at all. Jennifer barged in a few times, but I
quickly shoved her out again without feeling one little scrap
guilty about it. I didn’t take any of Benjamin’s thousands of calls
either. Or the one from Alex. But I did send them messages
afterwards, apologising for not answering.

The best thing
about the test week, though, was that a vacation always followed. A
peaceful, quiet time with my parents at home was lying ahead, and I
was looking forward to it. It also meant that my porridged brain
could have a well deserved rest.

Coincidentally,
there was apparently also some unbelievably important meeting
coming up and according to my dad I simply had to be there. He
didn’t want to say more over the phone and I didn’t have any brain
cells spare to listen either.

I got up from
bed and quickly pulled the sheets together. On my way out I grabbed
my bag, the small one. The vacation was only for one week and I had
packed lightly, winter being still a while away.

On my way down
the stairs I thought about my parents. I really looked forward to
seeing them as the last visit hadn’t really counted as a visit at
all. And hopefully this one wouldn’t have any big surprises; this
time I already knew all the secrets.

The parking lot
was empty, apart from my station wagon way back in the furthest
corner of the parking lot. Everybody had already left for the
holiday; astronomy was the only subject that had been scheduled for
today.

My mom beamed
at the sight of me. “Hello Valerie,” she said with tears in her
eyes.

“Hi, dear.
We’re glad to see you!” my dad said cheerfully.

“Hi Mom, Dad.
Why are you crying, Mom?” I asked, feigning surprise.

“We were so
worried about you!” she said and hugged me tightly.

“Oh, I’m fine,
Mom. I’m tougher than you think!”

She squeezed me
even tighter.

My dad took my
bag out of my hand and loaded it into the trunk of his car. Then he
opened the door for my mother. The three of us roared away in their
second-hand bottle-green nineteen-something BMW.

“How are you
doing? How did the tests go? Alex said that you were beaten up? He
only told us the highlights, from what he’d seen. Did they hurt you
bad?” The questions rattled out at me.

“Slow down,
Mom. I’m doing fine but I don’t want to talk about the... My tests
went well, thank you.”

She went quiet
and then said softly: “It’s okay, dear.” She wiggled her hand
through the gap between the door and the seat and grabbed my leg to
give it a little hug.

I yawned. I was
starting to relax a little and felt like falling asleep there and
then. “Yep, my tests were okay. They reduced me to a jelly-brained
mummy, but I made it.” I was proud of myself for how hard I’d
worked and how well it had gone.

“That’s good,
Valerie. As long as you do your best, we don’t care about the
results.”

They always
said that. I stared out the window with my head resting against the
side of the door. Buildings and road markings sped by and blurred
together with the memory of my last visit home.

“I’ve never had
a chance to apologise about before, about walking out. It’s just
that I was really upset. The whole world was going weird and I
didn’t expect you guys to be... a part of it.” It came out wrong
and I tried to fix it. “Not that I care any more, its kind-of cool
that you’re a part of it all; I don’t feel so alone. But tell me,
how are you a part of this? Are you guys...uh... connected as
well?”

“Your mother
isn’t, but I am. Ever heard of Molecular Clouds?” my dad
answered.

I immediately
recalled the section that I had studied on the birth of stars and
planets. Molecular Clouds contain the material for the formation of
new solar systems and even galaxies if they are big enough. In a
sense, Molecular Clouds are like the parents of planets and
stars.

“Astronomy is
one of my favourite subjects, Dad! You are from one of the newborn
stars?”

“I am an
ambassador for the Orion Complex,” he said heavily.

“The entire..?
But... but that’s
huge
!”

I felt humble
at the thought. The Orion Complex was absolutely massive,
stretching over the biggest part of the constellation Orion in the
sky. It was millions and millions of times bigger than Earth, or
the Sun even. Every single time that I thought I had everything
together, there was a new dimension. It wasn’t limited to planets
and stars any more.

My dad, the
Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. I repeated it in my head a few
times. In a sense, the parent role suited him.

“Dad, that is
really awe-inspiring,” I said softly. “With that size, you’re
probably famous!”

“Valerie, you
know I don’t care about things like that.”

His modesty was
typical of him. He was probably very, very famous, therefore his
reprimanding answer. And I knew him well enough not to push the
subject. But there was another question that I’d wanted to ask for
a while.

“Dad, how did
you know about my glow before?”

“Honey, we
expected it, but we weren’t sure. You see, two significant things
happened many years ago. There was a supernova not so far away, so
we expected new ambassadors. And also, there was sporadic, strong
magnetic activity on Earth. You can sense magnetism as well, can’t
you?”

I nodded.

“It was strong
enough to threaten Earth itself. We first searched the heavens for
an anomaly, but nothing fit the profile. It took a long time to
conclude that it came from the surface of the Earth instead. I and
your mother headed out in the direction of South-West Africa to
find the source.”

I listened
closely, puzzling in my mind what the problem could have been.

“We found you
in the bush, all alone, all by yourself. You were about three years
old. I couldn’t find any grown-up near you. The closest settlement
was about twenty kilometres away, and they didn’t know you at
all.”

My heart raced
in my chest. My lifetime of dreams and visions about being in the
bush suddenly made sense! Tears welled up in my eyes. I had always
known that they were true! And I wasn’t as crazy as I thought.
There was substance to my connection with Earth now. Maybe Earth
was calling for someone to save me.

Then I feared
the fact of having been alone out there. How could I possibly have
survived for three years? Surely only a terrible mother would leave
a baby alone like that? No wonder my parents had told me that she
had died and urged me not to even think about her.

“You were the
source of the activity. That’s how we know you are so strong. An
ambassador’s power can be measured by the strength of the magnetic
field radiated. We had phone calls from all over the world asking
who the new strong ambassador was. And if you think about it, even
Alex’s reach is a few meters at most. You stopped radiating shortly
after we’d found you.”

Impossible!
Alex had access to the energy of the sun, a star. How could the
Earth be so strong then? Or my Dad have the gravitational energy of
a massive molecular cloud? I recalled what they said about distance
playing a role, but certainly not that big a role.

“How did you
know that my connection is with Earth, and not a star for
instance?”

“We have a
little device that translates the pattern and colour of your iris
to the address of the ambassador’s star or planet. The link is
usually triggered sometime later in life and then the sponsoring
body is confirmed. It’s really Earth, love,” he paused and then
sounded very serious. “But what makes the situation so dangerous,
is that you are Earth’s first.”

”Why is it
dangerous?”