Chapter 4
VANESSA
Saturday mornings are my sanctuary. At least, they’re supposed to be.
There’s a sacred rhythm to it—fuzzy socks, questionable coffee, and the sound of Sammy humming through her pancakes like a sugared-up jazz saxophonist. I let the sun creep in through the window just enough to bathe the floor in that golden morning hush, the kind that makes the chaos of the week feel like it belongs to someone else.
My head is still halfway buried in the pillow when the bedroom door bangs open like she’s storming a castle.
“Mom!” Her voice rings out, loud and righteous. “The new guy is absolutely an alien.”
I groan into the sheets. “It’s barely nine.”
“He was talking to a glowing brick,” she says, dead serious. “And saying stuff like, ‘Hello, fellow humans! I am also one of you!’”
That jolts me halfway upright. “Excuse me?”
Sammy plants herself at the foot of my bed, fists on her hips. She’s still in her pajamas—purple ones with stars on them—and her hair looks like she combed it with a fork. “I was playing in the backyard and I heard him. So I climbed the fence to look.”
I sit up fully, rubbing at my eyes. “Baby, we’ve talked about this. No spying on the neighbors. That’s how you get a reputation. And tetanus.”
“But he had this brick thing and it was glowing blue, Mom. Not like LED-blue, but like, spaceship-core blue. And he was waving this big metal rod around like he was fighting invisible stormtroopers or something.”
I blink. “Stormtroopers aren’t the aliens in that movie.”
“You know what I mean.”
I do. Too well.
Still, I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and shuffle toward the window. The blinds are dusty—I’ve been meaning to clean them for six months—and I peel two slats apart with my fingers.
Then I see him.
Standing dead-center in the neighbor’s backyard is the most absurdly built man I have ever seen in my life.
Shirtless. Towering. Broad as a billboard with muscles that look like they were chiseled out of poor decisions and protein powder.
He’s got this long length of rebar in one hand and he’s twirling it, twirling it, like he’s at a damn Renaissance fair audition.
My brain hiccups.
That’s not a normal human being.
I don't mean in the alien sense—though Sammy's dramatic little heart might be onto something. I mean no one just wakes up looking like an Avenger. Or practices kung fu with construction materials in the middle of a Saturday morning.
“Okay,” I murmur, “that’s... odd.”
Sammy’s beside me now, her nose pressed against the glass. “Told you. He’s training.”
“Or high.”
“Or both.”
I should look away. Really, I should. But he moves like liquid war—graceful in a way that makes you forget the laws of mass and volume. I know dancers, boxers, athletes. They move with rhythm and control. But this guy?
This guy moves like he was born to break things.
“Maybe he’s ex-military,” I mumble, not believing it for a second.
Sammy shrugs. “Maybe. Or maybe he crash-landed his ship in the woods and is planning to blend into human society by pretending to be an accountant.”
I choke on a laugh. “Where do you get this stuff?”
She holds up a finger. “I do research, thank you. Unlike some people, I keep an open mind.”
I shake my head, smiling despite myself. Outside, the man—our mystery slab of sentient beef jerky—sets the rebar down and tilts his face up to the sun. For a heartbeat, he looks... lost. Not dazed. Not confused. Just quietly, profoundly out of place.
I step away from the window, heart thumping harder than it should. “Alright, Agent Mulder. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Sammy grins. “You’re looking at him again, aren’t you?”
“Shut up and go make pancakes.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
And as she skips off toward the kitchen, I glance back through the blinds.
Just once more.
I keep telling myself I’m just tired. That the flutter in my stomach is leftover stress, caffeine on an empty gut, and the fact that I barely slept more than four hours. It’s not attraction. It’s not interest. It’s not… whatever this weird magnetized buzzing under my skin is.
Probably just low blood sugar.
I pull the blinds down slowly and tiptoe back to the window like a kid sneaking peeks at Santa. The man—Richard, I think, that's what I've been hearing—has wandered over to the flowerbed. Mrs. Daughtry’s lilacs, still blooming because I couldn’t bring myself to dig them up.
He crouches. Slow. Mechanical. Like he’s following steps in a manual on How to Observe Plants.
And then he pokes the bush. With a stick.
He’s talking again, his mouth moving in deliberate, unsure patterns like someone trying to mimic speech rather than speak. I squint through the glass, holding my breath, not quite believing what I’m hearing.
“This flora is... cooperative. It demonstrates low threat potential.”
I clap my hand over my mouth.
Did he just assess the flowers for aggression?
And it’s not gibberish, exactly. It’s language, technically. English with a grammar that seems duct-taped together and said aloud like it’s his first time ever pushing words out of his face.
He turns his head slightly. Not toward me exactly—but close enough that I freeze like a raccoon caught in headlights. Then it happens. He waves.
Kind of.
It’s less a wave and more a... digital approximation.
His hand lifts, slow and unsure, fingers separated like he’s studying how it’s done from a poster and hasn’t yet grasped what the gesture is supposed to mean.
There’s no curve to it. No rhythm. Just stiff fingers lifting once, like he’s saluting the idea of humanity instead of any person in particular.
I dart away from the window so fast I nearly trip over my slippers. Heat floods my cheeks, and I feel like a voyeur. Or a lunatic. Or both.
“Did you see that?” Sammy says, scribbling furiously at the kitchen table. Her little tongue sticks out in concentration as she writes in her journal—her Alien Surveillance Log, of course. “That was not a normal human interaction. Marking that down as ‘Protocol Glitch: Attempted Friendly Signal.’”
I try to keep my voice even. “Honey, maybe we should take a little break from the alien stuff. Okay?”
She looks up at me over her glasses. “Why?”
“Because it’s starting to sound like we’re the crazy ones, not him.”
“But he is weird. You saw it too. You’re just scared to admit it.”
“I’m not scared,” I say, and it’s almost true. “I just don’t want you getting obsessed over a neighbor who’s probably just... awkward. Or foreign. Or both.”
“He talks to flowers, Mom.”
“And some people talk to their dogs.”
“He assessed it for aggression. Who does that?”
I open my mouth. Close it again.
Good question.
I glance at the window, half-expecting him to be standing there watching me now, like some low-budget Slenderman with better pecs.
But the yard is empty.
Still, the hairs on the back of my neck stay upright. Like my subconscious knows something my brain isn’t ready to admit.
I pour myself another cup of coffee, though it’s gone from lukewarm to tepid, and sink into the chair opposite Sammy.
She’s sketching again. The man’s profile. His arms. His stance. She’s labeled the drawing “Specimen X” and listed possible occupations underneath.
Alien scout, government plant, genetically modified accountant.
“Accountant?” I ask, pointing at it with my mug.
“He said he’s here to do taxes. No one does taxes voluntarily unless they’re either faking it or brainwashed.”
I can’t argue with that logic.
Sammy rips the page out and folds it crisply. She slips it into a separate binder marked “Field Evidence.” Then she closes her journal with a satisfied sigh and looks me dead in the eyes.
“We’re going to have to make contact eventually.”
“No,” I say, already preemptively exhausted. “We’re not making contact with the weird man who talks to bushes. That’s how horror movies start.”
“Maybe it’s how adventure starts.”
“Sammy.”
“Fine.”
But I can tell she doesn’t mean it.
And worse? That little rebellious corner of me, the same one that wanted to peek again, the same one that felt something strange and electric pass through my bones when he smiled?
That part of me... kind of agrees with her.
The soil is too dry, the sun is too hot, and I’m ninety-nine percent sure Sammy has ulterior motives. But here we are, on a lazy Saturday afternoon, sweating and covered in dirt with a trowel in one hand and a half-crushed bag of tulip bulbs in the other.
“I thought we were waiting until fall to plant these,” I mutter, wiping my forehead with the back of my wrist.
“We were,” Sammy chirps, already digging a lopsided hole. “But scientific observation requires proximity. And he’s right there.”
She tilts her chin ever so subtly toward the yard next door, and I follow her gaze like a moth to a flame.
Richard—if that is his real name—is stalking the perimeter of his yard with a device that definitely does not belong in a suburban toolbox. It’s boxy and metallic with a glowing display that flashes in irregular pulses. He scans the lawn with the precision of a man searching for landmines.
“Maybe he’s a surveyor?” I offer weakly.
Sammy snorts. “Surveyors don’t scan trees.”
He does. Twice.
My gaze trails along his broad back, the pull of his t-shirt across those massive shoulders.
He moves like someone wearing a meat suit for the first time, overly aware of every muscle twitch, every joint.
And even from this distance, there’s something.
.. off about him. Not bad. Just uncanny.
Like his bones are a few degrees out of sync with the rest of the universe.
I bury another bulb, tell myself to stop staring, and fail spectacularly.
Then he sees us.
His head snaps toward us like a hawk spotting prey, and for half a second, I forget how to breathe. He pauses, lowers his strange device, and walks over.
Sammy immediately perks up. “Showtime,” she whispers.
“Be polite,” I hiss.
“Always.”
Richard crosses the yards with long, deliberate strides, every step landing with a peculiar precision. He stops at the low chain-link fence that separates our properties and just… stands there. Tall. Silent. Ominous in the friendliest possible way.
“Hello,” he says after what feels like a week. His voice is a deep baritone, mechanical and oddly timed, like each word is part of a separate instruction manual.
“I am Richard. I am an accountant. From Earth.”
I bite my lip so hard I taste copper.
Sammy doesn’t even try to hide her snort. She claps both hands over her mouth and doubles over in the dirt, giggling like a maniac.
He waits, watching her with an expression that suggests confusion rather than offense. I clear my throat and offer a hand over the fence.
“I’m Vanessa. This is Sammy. We live next door.”
He reaches out, too slowly, too carefully, like he’s trying not to break my fingers with a simple handshake.
His grip is warm, dry, and surprisingly gentle.
But his eyes—those eyes—catch me off guard.
They’re gold, or maybe amber, and there’s something too still behind them.
Like the shine on predator glass or the pause in a video that’s buffering reality.
“It is… acceptable to meet you,” he says solemnly.
I blink. “You mean, nice?”
“Yes. Nice. Correct. That is what humans say.”
Another snort from the tulip bed.
He cocks his head, studying Sammy. “Your offspring is making joyful sounds. Is that… normal?”
“Laughing,” I explain. “She’s laughing.”
“Ah. I was concerned she might be experiencing respiratory failure.”
Now I’m laughing.
“Totally normal,” I say, fighting the grin creeping across my face. “She does that a lot.”
Sammy jumps to her feet and squints up at him like a skeptical FBI agent. “Do you really do taxes?”
He pauses. “Yes.”
She narrows her eyes. “Name one tax code.”
“Code... seven.”
“Nice try.”
Richard shifts his weight, clearly unsure what to do next. He looks between us like he’s checking for hidden prompts or script notes.
“Are you enjoying your Earth weather?” he asks.
“It’s... fine,” I say, bewildered. “A little hot.”
“I concur. My sweat glands are producing at maximum capacity.”
He says it so seriously I can’t help but laugh again, a short, sharp burst that startles even me. There’s something oddly endearing about the way he tries. Like he downloaded a partial instruction manual on how to be a person and skipped the emotional nuance section entirely.
“Well,” I say, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, “welcome to the neighborhood. If you need anything, don’t be a stranger.”
“I will attempt not to.”
He turns with military precision and marches back toward his house, every motion deliberate, every muscle group involved. As he disappears around the side of his garage, Sammy exhales like she’s been holding her breath the whole time.
“That,” she says, “was the best interaction I’ve ever had in my entire life.”
I shake my head. “He’s definitely not normal.”
Sammy grins like she’s just won the lottery. “I told you. He’s an alien.”
And for once, I don’t disagree. Not out loud.
Because a tiny, irrational part of me—the one that still believes in magic and fate and really, really weird timing—can’t shake the feeling that this man is more than just a bad liar in a meat suit.
He’s something else.
And I think we just met our very own visitor from the stars.