The girls woke up with the sunrise. A hot pancake and eggs breakfast was waiting for them downstairs. When they asked Uncle Jack about the night before, he said thought it was a weather phenomenon. A sky quake he called it, but he wasn’t sure. The only thing they all were sure of was that it was weird.
He had the girls laughing through the rest of breakfast with stories of Herbie and the farm team, while they waited for Fiona’s mom to arrive. Soon after the girls left, Uncle Jack headed into town to run a few errands. He asked if Anna wanted to come along, but she said she’d be good at home. Uncle Jack wouldn’t be back until the afternoon, which gave Anna time to explore the farm on her own.
The dust from Uncle Jack’s truck hadn’t even settled before Anna was out the door and across the dirt driveway to the empty field just beyond. She carried a backpack, her journal and a general idea of where she wanted to go. Tyson Lake. But, she wasn’t sure of the best way to get there and decided the best path was a straight line through the woods.
An irrigation ditch separated the field and the grove of trees. Anna walked along the ditch, keeping pace with a small stick that spun and bounced along with the flowing water, until she reached a wooden plank that served as a makeshift bridge. The plank bowed in the middle and creaked as she walked across the irrigation ditch like a tightrope artist, but it held.
Anna took a step into the woods and felt as if she had crossed a barrier. Sound was muted and the temperature was a good five to ten degrees cooler here. Light filtered down from the canopy of leaves making patterns on the forest floor. The deeper she made her way into the woods, the more quiet it became, except for the snap and pop of fallen branches she stepped on. How long had it been? It felt like an hour, but her phone showed only five minutes had passed. Then, just ahead, she could make out a clearing.
The trees and brush opened up as she made her way down a slight embankment, revealing the glasslike surface of Tyson Lake. She climbed her way to the top of one of the large boulders that lined this side of the water and looked out. Across the lake, she saw the sensor and camera she had set up two days before. To her right was a large meadow surrounded by trees and no road access. She looked down from her vantage point and could see her reflection shimmering in the water below. The water was deep, perfect for diving, she thought. She’d have to bring her new friends here the next time they came over.
Anna scaled her way down the boulder. She picked up a large rock and tossed it as far as she could over the lake, making a deep satisfying kerplunk. She picked up a smaller rock, round and flat, and skipped it across the surface of the water sending out a succession of concentric ripples. She started scanning the shore for more skipping rocks, picking up and discarding rocks as she walked, until she looked up and realized she had made it all the way to the meadow’s edge.
Anna picked up another rock to see if she could toss it across the grassy clearing. She estimated the throw to be well over one hundred and fifty feet. She had thrown a baseball that far before, but the rock was a little heavier and its edges created drag. Anna calculated the vertical angle of the throw and wind speed and figured it was a stretch, but doable. She spun her arm around a couple of times like a pitcher warming up, then took a deep breath. She brought her arm back in a smooth throwing motion, and then let it fly.
The rock arched gracefully across the sky a good forty feet before it stopped in mid-air with a metallic ping. It seemed to float for a second then fell straight down to the earth.
“Huh?” Anna said out loud.
Had she hit a bird? Impossible. The sky was completely clear. Anna picked up another rock and chucked it across the meadow.
Ptinnng!
The rock stopped mid-air, just like the one before, and fell to the ground as if it had hit a wall. Part of Anna wanted to turn and run. The other part, the one which drove her to build rockets and leap from the edge of her house onto a trampoline, told her to move forward. Anna made her way out into the meadow. Ten steps in and Anna heard a dull hum and felt an electric charge. The hair on her arms began to stand up, just like the night before. Twenty steps in and her face banged into something rigid and cold and invisible.
“Owww,” Anna grabbed her nose and fell back hard on her butt.
She looked up, rubbing her nose. Nothing but sky. Anna slowly reached out with her hand and touched an invisible surface. It felt smooth, almost wet, and cold like glass but there was nothing there. A glass wall?
She began to scale along the wall, tapping on the surface with her knuckles and trying to make sense of what she was experiencing. Who would build something like this and why? The invisible wall seemed to curve as she made her way closer to the shoreline, but she couldn’t tell. Her hand left no prints on the surface. There were no smudges, no imperfections. Then, her left hand reached out and felt nothing. She had hit the end of the wall, at least it felt like the end. She grabbed the corner with both hands and peered around to the other side.
Since she was a little girl, Anna had learned to trust her rational mind, her own clear-eyed view of the world. But, the second she turned the corner, that trust slipped away like the strength in her legs. She couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing in front of her. Light reflected off shiny surfaces and the dim hum from the other side of the wall was now a bright chorus..
The first thing she noticed was the house, but it didn’t look like any house she had ever seen before; part cathedral, part modernist home, part alien spaceship. It rested on top of a small hill with grass lawns gently sloping down from each side. The exterior was made almost entirely of glass with white stone columns and a dome-like roof. Set in front of the house, a crystal spire reached high into the sky, it’s surface shimmered like water and reflected the clouds passing by.
Anna leaned back around to the other side of the invisible wall, just to check if her eyes were playing tricks on her. On one side, there was nothing but empty meadow. She leaned her head back again. On the other side of the wall were lights, a house and a giant alien spire. She spent the next minute leaning back and forth and wondering who had broken the laws of physics.
Two objects buzzed up from behind the house and began chasing each other around the spire like hummingbirds playing tag. They moved so fast, Anna couldn’t quite tell what they were. Then, one of the objects slowed down long enough for her to make out its form. It was the size of a small child. It had two arms and two legs, but it's torso was rounded and a fire-engine red. The object floated silently in mid-air like a buoy bobbing in water. Slowly, it’s dome-like head swiveled around and two bright lights pointed straight at Anna. She wanted to turn and run, but her legs were frozen in place.
Like a blur, the object descended from the sky to just feet above Anna’s head. A floating garbage can. It stared at Anna as if it was trying to make sense of her. Anna stared back trying to make sense of this thing floating above her head. It definitely wasn’t human, but there were human markings along its side. Numbers and letters. And, it suddenly clicked.
“You’re a robot,” Anna whispered.
The thing beeped a series of bird-like notes and then buzzed back up the hill to the other side of the house, out of view. The bright chorus suddenly stopped as if someone turned off a switch leaving Anna in silence. Nothing moved, including Anna who stood paralyzed — afraid to run back, afraid to go forward. Just as she had worked up enough courage to move, another figure gracefully floated up from behind the house.
This time there was no mistaking the figure floating towards her. Even from this distance, Anna could tell she was a woman; her body a silhouette with the sun against her back. Anna shielded her eyes from the glare. The woman glided across the air like a surfer on water and landed gently within feet of Anna. She had jet-black hair and wore a white body suit that seemed to shift colors depending upon how the light hit it. Even in the glare, Anna could tell she was the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen.
“Oh my. You can see me, can’t you?” the woman frowned. She took a step closer. “This is a problem.”
Anna didn’t like the sound of that.
The woman must have sensed it and smiled gently. “Not for you, my young friend. The problem is mine. I won’t hurt you.”
“Are you an alien?” Anna asked, surprised by how small her voice sounded.
The woman smiled even more broadly. “That depends.”
“On…?”
“On where you call home. Are you from Earth?”
“Yes.”
“Then, no, I’m not an alien.”
“What are you then?” Anna asked.
“A girl like you, just older. My name is Mara.”
“My name is Anna,” she said. “Where are you from?”
Mara paused for a moment and then lifted a finger. “That is an excellent question, but before I can answer any questions, which I’m sure you have many, I will need you to do me a favor first. Will you promise to wait right here?”
Anna nodded her head, still trying to take it all in. She watched Mara float ten feet above her head, wink reassuringly and then glide noiselessly away. Her boots left a trail of blue light behind her as she flew. The large glass window on the second floor silently slid open and Mara disappeared into one of the bright corners of her house.
Anna began to mentally catalog all she had just seen and check off viable explanations for each. If Mara wasn’t an alien, it left few choices. Anna was either suffering hallucinations or she was completely nuts, or a combination thereof. Or, her view of the possible just expanded to science fiction and comic books.
Mara emerged from the house and glided silently back down to Earth. She wore a pair of skin-tight gloves. She didn’t have those before, Anna thought.
“Before we begin, I need to verify something. Can you look directly into my palm for me?” Mara lifted her hand up like a cop stopping traffic. In the center of her palm glowed a pulsing white light that spun in a lazy clockwork motion.
Anna squinted her eyes and swore she could see her reflection in the light.
“That’s weird,” Anna whispered under her breath. She found it hard to look away from the spinning light. It was so pretty. And now, she noticed a green pulse and the calming sound of running water.
“I’m sure everything seems strange now,” Mara’s voice was distant. “But, it will all make sense in just a moment.”
“What are you doing to me?’ Anna struggled to keep from falling asleep.
“I’m doing us both a favor. Trust me, it’s better this way.”
Anna felt herself slipping away, losing control, falling asleep. But, she wouldn’t give in. She took in a deep breath and began reciting digits of pi in her head; a technique she had used for years when she felt things were spinning out of control. 3.141592…6538979… Fifteen decimal places in and the buzzing in her head slowly began to fade...32384626433832. Thirty decimal places in and her head had cleared completely. The face in the reflection was her own again. Anna blinked several times. Her image blinked back. The only effect of her recent spell was that she felt rested and wide awake.
“The neurons which assist in your short term memory have been interrupted, effectively erasing the last fifteen minutes from your memory,” Mara continued. “You’ll be dazed for a couple of minutes. But, I promise you, when you awake you won’t suffer…”
“I’m not sleepy.”
A look of doubt clouded Mara’s face, but she continued. “The full effects of the memory interruption will have already settled in...”
“No, serious. I feel fine,” Anna repeated.
Mara let her hand drop slowly and cocked her head to the side, like a doctor trying to get a read on her patient. She waved her other hand in front of Anna’s face. “How can that be? Are you sure you don’t feel sleepy?”
“Nope.”
“No blurred vision? No dizziness?”
“Nope,” Anna shook her head.
“Well, that didn’t work,” Mara sighed and then looked sternly at Anna. “You know you’re making this very difficult for me.”
“Can I ask my questions now?” Anna stood her ground. Her curiosity had effectively trumped any fear she may have felt.
Anna wasn’t insane. She was sure of it. This was real, as implausible as it seemed. She crossed hallucinations from her short list of explanations and was left with one likely remaining scenario. The more she thought of it, the more she was filled with a growing sense of excitement, a sense her entire world was just about to change. Anna took a deep breath.
“You’re from the future, aren’t you?”
Mara’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, if you’re not an alien, it’s the only other explanation that makes sense. Robots that fly. Some kind of anti-gravity thing. A weird cloaking device around your house that no one can see. We’re hundreds of years from any technology like this,” Anna said.
Mara sighed. “Ninety-three years to be exact, at least for the anti-gravity boots.”
“Ha! I knew it. I knew it!” Anna pointed her finger at Mara and burst out in laughter. “Anti-gravity boots? Did you just really say that? That is the coolest thing ever. No wait, time travel is the coolest thing ever. Can I hug you?”
Anna wrapped her arms around Mara before she could respond.
“Sorry, I just wanted to make sure you were real,” Anna said. She released her grasp and stepped back. “Ok, so where do we start?”
“By you turning around and going home to your parents and forgetting you ever saw me,” Mara pointed towards the clearing in the forest.
“I can’t,” Anna’s voice trailed off. “I don’t have any parents.”
Anna realized she had never had to utter those words before, not in that way. They sounded empty and far removed, as if she were describing the life of a stranger. Mara let her arm fall slowly to her side. Her face softened as she stepped forward.
“You’re an orphan?” Mara asked.
Anna nodded.
“Just like me,” Mara said. She placed her hand on Anna’s shoulder.
The two stared at each other for a moment. Mara’s lips were pursed tight and she didn’t blink. Finally, her face relaxed.
“I’ll make a deal with you on two conditions,” Mara said.
Anna allowed herself a small smile. “Yes?”
“One. I’ll answer your questions if I can. If I can’t, don’t push it. I have my reasons. Two, you can’t tell anyone about this place or about me,” Mara counted off the conditions with her fingers. “Not a single person. Not a word. Ever.”
“Ever? Really? Come on,” Anna’s shoulder slumped. “You want me to keep the single greatest thing that has happened to me a secret? I’ll explode.”
“Not a word.”
“And, what happens if I do tell?” Anna probed.
“I have some things a lot worse than the memory interruptor at my disposal. Do we have a deal?” Mara put her hand out.
At that moment, Anna would have agreed to anything to spend more time in this strange new world. She grabbed Mara’s hand and shook it hard. “Deal. Now, where can we start?”