Nick left to the kitchen and returned with another place setting. When he got back, his dad and uncle were standing by the head of the table, Dad’s arm awkwardly draped over Damian’s shoulder.
“… he’ll be joining us for dinner,” Dad concluded.
Nick looked around the room. His grandparents looked confuse at the random guest who had just appeared, his mom looked like she was trying to communicate with his dad using her eyes alone, and Sally looked like Christmas had come early.
Grandpa Todd cleared his throat. “I wasn’t aware you had a brother, Mark.”
“Uh… yes,” Dad said. “We’re not… close.”
“I travel a lot,” Damian said with a smile. “Makes it hard to keep in touch.”
Grandma Jane nodded slowly.
“You can sit here.” Sally dragged a chair to the table beside hers. Damian sat down and Nick handed him a plate. Dad dished out the pot roast in silence.
“So,” Grandma Jane desperately tried to break the stalemate, “Damian, what do you do?”
“He’s a—”
“I’m a pilot,” Damian said sweetly before answering Dad’s glare.
“Oh,” Grandma Jane gave the note of mild interest reserved for pilots, firefighters, and other jobs third graders aspire to. “That’s nice. Commercial airlines?”
“Private planes, mostly,” Damian says. “I go here and there, working odd jobs.”
“Oh, what’s that like—”
“Todd,” Dad interrupted. “Didn’t you tell me you were restoring a canoe? How’s that going?”
Grandpa Todd’s bushy eyebrows rose. If Dad was going for subtlety, asking about Todd’s woodworking, a topic everyone strove to avoid at all costs, was not the way to do it. Todd was so shocked he didn’t even take advantage of the golden opportunity presented to turn the conversation to his favorite topic.
Damian paused a beat before turning back to Grandma Jane. “It’s a hell of a life, if you’re up for it. I’ve seen sights you couldn’t even imagine.”
“Damian,” Dad said forcefully. “Can we talk?”
The grandparents shared a glance as Dad and Damian rose from the table. Nick saw grandma mouth ‘Is everything all right’ to his mom. He waited until he couldn’t hear his dad’s footsteps in the hall before he got up from the table, too.
“I’ll go talk to them.”
“Nick.” There was a note of warning in his mother’s voice, but no command.
“I’ll be right back.” Nick was out of the room before his mother could stop him. Out in the hallway, he padded down the hall until he could hear his uncle’s voice.
“… don’t see what’s the big deal,” Uncle Damian was saying.
“They’re my in-laws, Damian,” Dad said. “They don’t need to know about all your… traveling.”
“Why, afraid they’ll think I’m the cool brother?”
“Damian.”
“What? What is it?” Damian asked. “My first visit in years, and this is the reception I get?”
“No, this is not a visit,” Dad said. “This is you showing up, unannounced and uninvited, on the day of my son’s graduation and ingratiating yourself with my in-laws.”
“I was invited!”
“What?” Dad asked. “How?”
Taking a deep breath, Nick stepped around the corner into view. “I invited him,” he said calmly.
Nick’s dad spun on his heels. “Nick? What are you doing here?” Then, after a moment, “Wait, you invited him?”
Nick nodded.
“With that old piece of crap in the attic?” Dad asked.
“Piece of crap?” Damian objected. “That thing is a precision instrument.”
Dad turned back to his brother. “It hasn’t worked in years. I’m amazed Nick got a response out of it.”
“Not getting a response doesn’t mean it’s not working.”
Dad frowned. “What did you say?”
“It’s not important,” Damian said. “The point is, I was invited, so you can stop giving me the death stare.”
Dad rolled his eyes and turned back to Nick. “Why did you send Uncle Damian a message without telling us?”
“You said I could invite people to my dinner,” Nick said, with undeserved confidence.
“I meant friends,” Dad said.
“And I did ask you about having Uncle Damian over,” Nick said. “You thought he wouldn’t come.”
“You have such a low opinion of me,” Damian said.
Dad looked away and sighed. “Alright, fine,” he said. “Damian, you can stay, as long as you don’t talk to Jane and Todd about… you know…”
“Space?” Uncle Damian asked. “And the inky blackness thereof, wherein I travel at speeds faster than a ray of light in my ship, which I pilot to distant planets and star systems?”
Dad sighed. “Yes. That. Don’t talk to them about any of that.”
“So I just pretend to be an earthbound pilot?”
“I didn’t want you to be a pilot at all. I was going to tell them you’re an accountant.”
“But I hate math.”
“You don’t have to—fine, tell them whatever you want, just nothing about space-travel.”
“Agreed.”
The pair turned to walk back to the dinning room, to find Nick standing in their way.
“Maybe we should talk,” Nick said. His dad frowned suspiciously while Uncle Damian just looked confused.
“You know how Uncle Damian travels around in space,” Nick began, “and Dad, you used to travel with him,” Nick’s dad sighed, “and, now that school is over, I’m an adult and don’t have anything I need to do on Earth…”
“What? No, absolutely not,” Dad said. “You are not traveling around in space with your uncle. He’d forget you on some moon and you’d never come home.”
“I would not,” Damian said. “I never leave a crew member behind.”
“You leave everyone behind,” Dad said. “That’s what a spaceship is for. It’s for leaving. You are an inherently flighty person.”
“That’t not fair,” Nick said.
“We’re not having this conversation,” Dad said. “You are not getting on that spaceship.”
“Uncle Damian—”
“I’m with your dad on this one,” Damian said. “I think it’s best for you to remain here, with your family.” Dad snorted, but Damian ignored it.
“But…”
“Let’s go back to dinner, Nick,” Dad said gently. Cheeks red, both hurt and embarrassed by the dual rejection, Nick followed his dad back into the dinning room, where Uncle Damian played nice the rest of the evening.
Late that night, as the crickets droned a soothing melody and the moon cast the street in an even, gray light, a single, yellow light turned back on in the Stabranth house. In the dim light of his desk lamp, Nick fished a duffel bag from the back of his closet and threw clothes into it. He moved slowly, silently. He set his camera into its case with the same solemnity he had that morning, when he left on his bird-watching mission. He tucked the camera into his duffel bag and closed the thing. The zipper made a pale counterpoint to the crickets outside. Nick stared at the bag, closed and waiting, for a moment, not too lost in thought to hear the floorboards creak behind him.
“Sally?” Nick asked without turning around. Mom wouldn’t have bothered being quiet, and Dad would have already said something by now.
“What are you doing?” Sally asked in a quiet voice. Nick winced and turned slowly.
The lamp head was turned away from her, leaving Sally in that lampshade shadow that dulled colors to a warm brown. Her eyes were dark, but her frown was clearly visible.
“I’m… leaving, Sally.” It was no use trying to lie. She’d see through anything he tried to pull, and that wasn’t the way he wanted to leave, anyway.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going with Uncle Damian,” Nick murmured. “I’ll be back. I just need to go now.”
“Why?”
Nick sighed. “Because… I have to. I can’t stay on Earth, go to college, get a job, knowing that there’s an entire galaxy out there I know nothing about. I need to see it. I’ll be back. I just… have to go.”
“Did you tell Mom and Dad?” Sally asked.
“I tried to talk to Dad,” Nick said. “It didn’t work. I’ll send a message from Damian’s ship.”
“Send a message how?”
Nick paused for a moment, then walked over to his dresser. Hesitantly, Sally followed. Nick reached up to the metal monster on the top shelf. “With this, you can send me a message no matter where I am. You’ll need to replace the batteries, it goes through them like crazy, but you can always get a hold of me.” He pointed to the buttons and dials needed to make the machine work. When he had finished, she repeated it all back perfectly.
“See, even though I’m leaving, you’ll always be able to get ahold of me, if you need to,” Nick said. “You understand.”
She nodded solemnly.
“I need to go now. You won’t tell Mom and Dad until I’m gone?”
She hesitated, then nodded again.
“Good.” Nick hoisted his duffel bag and flipped off his lamp. In the sudden dark, he could hear Sally walk away, the floorboard near the door creaking as she left. When her door swung open, then closed again, Nick moved. He stepped over the creaky floorboard and walked down the stairs. He slipped outside and into the pale night.
Nick’s dad thought Nick more ignorant of Damian’s habits than he was. Damian hadn’t visited Earth much recently, but he and Dad had both grown up in this town, and Dad was far from the only one who remembered him. Damian still had some friends on Earth.
Friends like Elize Roaker, who ran her own bakery, who had cooked since she, and Damian, were children and who made the best oatmeal raisin cookies in, Nick had it on good authority, the galaxy. Damian’s visit might have been rushed, but Nick doubted he would leave without seeing his oldest friend.
Now, Elize Roaker was an upstanding businesswoman. She had a reputation around town to maintain, and she couldn’t be seen sneaking around, say, Whittaker park, near the place where the flooded creek had taken out several trees and nothing yet had grown back in its place, with a strange box and no good explanation for what she was up to. And so, for the last twenty years, Elize Roaker had only ever seen her friend under the cover of night.
At midnight, Ms. Roaker, alone in the park, slipped off the path and into the crowded woods around the creek. There was a small footpath, invisible if you didn’t already know it was there, made by footsteps walking back and forth. And, about two minutes past midnight, Nick Stabranth also slipped off the path and into the woods, far enough away to not be seen or, more likely, heard as the undergrowth impeded his sneaking skills. Nick had found this path years before, when Ms. Roaker, impatient after some serious pleading, gave one too many hints about where the best place in town was to hide a space ship. After that, it had taken only two weeks to find the path, and trace it back to the clearing.
The thick trees Nick walked underneath blocked the strong moonlight. He crept along the path, praying his foot wouldn’t get stuck in some unseen hole, while Ms. Roaker strolled along easily, made confident by years of experience. Nick’s phone was in his pocket, but he didn’t want to use the flashlight and risk Roaker seeing it.
The forest ended abruptly. One minute there was canopy overhead, the next open sky. The moon illuminated the clearing, the fallen trees, and, perched precariously on top of the logs, Uncle Damian’s spaceship, the Stargazer.
Chicken-leg landing gear kept the body of the ship level on uneven ground. Dark blue and streaked with black scorch marks, the main body of the ship was a large circle with the bridge a column sprouting from one side, coming to a point. From where he was standing, the blank windows in the ship's front looked like eyes staring right at Nick. The blue of the body was broken by red accents, turned light gray in the night. The moon painted the top half of the ship silver, while the bottom was cast in darkness. Nick gasped a little when he saw the ship, so caught up that he didn’t see a part of the darkness break off and step forward.
“Got your cookies, ya bum.” There was a grin in Ms. Roaker’s voice. “You’ve got what you need. Now you can leave for years on end and never call.”
“You’re welcome to come with, you know,” Uncle Damian said lightly. “Can’t say the kitchen’s up to your standards, but…”
Ms. Roaker chuckled. “I’ll pass. I like having ground beneath my feet and an atmosphere right outside the door.”
Damian shook his head as Roaker wrapped him in a big hug. She muttered something to him, too quiet for Nick to hear. Damian said something back.
Now was his chance. Nick stuck to the treeline and crept around the clearing. A quarter turn around from where he started, the shadow of the Stargazer stretched out to the trees, leaving only a few feet of light between the two pools of darkness. Nick glanced over to his uncle and, seeing that Damian was still talking to Ms. Roaker, dashed into the Stargazer’s shadow as quickly as he could.
It was dark under the ship, an inky darkness that left Nick unsure where the ground was. He reached out a hand and brushed against one of the ship’s legs. The landing gear was cool to the touch, and a little oily. Nick held onto the leg as he waited for his eyes to adjust. When he was sure he wasn’t about to face-plant, Nick started walking down the length of the ship.
Nick was in luck. Damian had left the walkway down when he left the Stargazer to meet Elize. A long metal ramp reached down, beckoning Nick upward into the warm light of the ship and a bold future. After a quick glance to make sure there was no one nearby, Nick walked up the ramp.
On the inside, the Stargazer’s narrow halls were bathed in yellow light. Nick looked around. He was at the base of the ship’s circle, with a curved hallway to the right and left. The walls were panels of something like plastic, originally white but now comfortably yellowed. Nick could see several doors along the outside of the circle, and one directly in front of him, at the inside of the ship.
In a daze, Nick put his duffle bag down and walked over to the door across from the entrance. Reverently, he trailed a hand along the metal. It was warmer than he expected, and it thrummed with a faint buzz so low that Nick could barely hear it. The door was rougher than expected, too, metal covered in hundreds of scuffs and scrapes. Nick breathed deeply, a smile breaking out on his face.
A branch snapped behind him, followed by the sound of footsteps. Nick’s eyes widened. He grabbed his duffle and looked around for a place to hide. Uncle Damian had said no at the dinner. If he knew that Nick was aboard before the ship took off, he might send Nick home.
Nick started down the right hallway, but he heard voices. He took two steps along the left path before he realized that the sounds were coming from both directions. The hallways connected somewhere close, and if he guessed wrong, he’d be caught for sure.
The footsteps outside paused while Uncle Damian said something unintelligible to Roaker. Looking around, Nick’s eyes fell on the door across from the entrance. He tried the handle. It was locked.
The footsteps started again. Nick tugged on the door again, a third time, until it clicked open. The door opened far enough for Nick to slip through and close it behind him. Nick’s heart climbed into his throat as he leaned his ear against the door.
The footsteps got louder when Damian reached the metal ramp. They got closer and closer as he climbed the ramp, then stopped.
Nick’s heart stopped when he heard a knock from the door. “Nick, I know you’re in there. Open up.”
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