Chapter 10
“And how do we know the city is safe?” Pop is saying as me and Max go inside. “I can protect our boys.”
“I’m not saying you can’t,” Mom says, glancing our way. “I’m just saying if we don’t know what it is–”
“The Land weren’t afraid.”
“You said they hadn’t heard of it.”
“They didn’t say nothing about running away. This is still an unknown world. There are things we don’t understand all over the place. If we run from all of it–”
“I know how you feel about running, Todd–”
“I’ve run enough, I’m not running no more–”
“But you do not get to decide on your own whether our boys are safe.” There’s enough snap to her voice that Pop looks slapped.
“Are we in danger?” Max asks.
“Max–” Mom starts, but Pop holds up a hand in defeat, stopping her.
“We don’t know,” he tells us. Then he frowns. “But if you boys would feel safer in the city–”
Max would, I sign. He’s been having nightmares.
“Hey!” Max says, outraged.
“Really?” Mom asks, surprisingly interested. “What kind?”
“We got some giant creature running through the woods,” Pop says, “why are we talking about dreams all of a sudden?”
“It’s not that,” Mom says. “It’s . . .” She takes a deep breath. “Okay, this isn’t actually public yet, but exactly sixteen days ago, we saw something in the sky–”
“Who’s we?” Max asks.
“The Science Committee on the City Council. We thought it was an asteroid. But now we’re thinking . . . it’s a ship.”
“More settlers?” Pop asks.
Mom shakes her head. “Not like any ship we’ve seen before.
It looks like a giant rock, like it was formed in space rather than built.
But it’s sending out signals we can’t decipher.
And it’s so far away, we don’t have the equipment to communicate with it.
All we can do is watch it. But the first night we saw it, kids in the city began having nightmares.
” She looks at Max. “And by all accounts, they’re pretty terrible. ”
“Well, that’s super interesting,” Max says, all harsh and clearly changing the subject, “but it doesn’t explain a burning, screaming god that nearly killed us.”
“All I know,” Mom says, “is that something out there showed up on our telescopes, and the night we saw it, weird things began to happen. These dreams. Now maybe this creature you saw.” She bites her lip distractedly. “And the something out there is getting closer.”
“It’s coming here?” Pop asks.
“At current speed, in about forty-four days.”
“And what’s going to happen then?” Max asks.
Mom doesn’t even have to answer this one. She doesn’t know.
But something’s coming.
Then there are two thuds on the front door, loud and hard enough to nearly break it down.
“It’s come back!” Max yells. “The god’s come back!”
But Pop’s already moving, his Noise opening up. I can already see the conversation starting.
The Sky has come to visit.