"Tyler is Tyler," Noi murmured, repeating what had become his fan club’s catchcry.
"Yeah, this was before he gave that interview about labels, and what he identified as. I got trapped in an argument with a bunch of girls about me not being sensitive or respectful enough and, well, we were at the top of a flight of stairs. I ended up with a broken arm, Mum took me out of school for what was left of the year, and we moved to Sydney."
The two people in school she’d thought her closest friends had been in that group. None of it had been strictly intentional; it had all just escalated into stupidity. At her new school she’d almost gone out of her way to cultivate a stuck up bitch reputation, and had maintained total disinterest in socialising right up until she met Noi’s Devonshire tea.
For someone who had been so convinced friends weren’t worth it, Madeleine was aware of spending more and more time worrying about Noi. She wanted to find ways to make it easier for her, to relieve the hurt beneath her surface good humour. It was an impulse born of more than just a practical need for allies, or a change in herself to fit a new world. There were some people that you were just meant to be friends with.
"Will you tell me about your family?" she asked tentatively, and saw immediately that it was too soon, adding: "Some time?"
Noi had turned her head so the sun hat hid her face, but she nodded, and increased her pace, weaving through the clusters of people sitting on the east side of the lifeguard tower.
"Here you are!"
It was Emily, fine blonde hair tumbling out of its topknot, face strained, a waver in her voice.
"What’s up?" Noi sounded startled. "Did something happen?"
"No, I –" The girl stopped in front of them, suddenly shamefaced. "I just didn’t know where you were. I’m sorry."
Noi paused, expression quizzical, then her wry smile bloomed. "Don’t worry so much. We’re not going to run off and leave you. You must have seen that the car’s still here."
Patches of red blotched Emily’s fine skin, and she told them again she was sorry. "I just kept – I keep thinking I see those guys, and then it isn’t them. The thing is, I could have blown holes in windows just as easily as them. I could have blown holes in walls. But all I did was what they told me, and wish I could get away, and I don’t know if I could ever have stood up to them the way you did, and I feel so stupid and so angry and I just want to hit things."
"Millie the Mauler," Noi said, and tugged a lock of Emily’s hair. "Don’t forget I’m technically the responsible adult around here. I’ve had more time to practice dealing with dickheads. You’re, what, fifteen?"
"Thirteen."
"What?! You are not allowed to be thirteen and taller than me! Between you and Maddie I’m going to get a complex. But even with your unnatural stalkiness, I’ve still got your back. And you and Maddie have got mine, okay? We’re the Three Musketeers – except without swordfights. We can be dashing, and…y’know, I have absolutely no idea what the Three Musketeers did, except it involved swordfights. And hats with feathers."
"The Blue Musketeers. We can rescue people."
Emily took Noi’s hand and gave her a look of such unbounded admiration that Madeleine, a step behind them, was struck with an urgent need to get them home so she could paint them.
"Weren’t muskets guns?" Noi continued. "Why swordfights?"
Madeleine was about to suggest heading off for an artistic interlude when a woman sitting on the sand a short way ahead glanced in their direction, gaped, and sprang to her feet. She was pointing above and behind them, so of course they stopped and turned, and saw a pale ball of light dropping out of the sky toward them.
A falling star.
Chapter Eight
"Back up," Noi ordered, gripping Emily and Madeleine’s arms and drawing them toward the edge of the surf as the watermelon-sized ball slowed to a stop about ten feet above the sand.
All those immediately around the light moved similarly, though others came forward, until there was a large circle of people south-east of the lifeguard tower. Some kept going till they were well distant, and Madeleine spotted the Jabbours pausing near the ramp off the beach, and thought it strange that no-one outright left. They’d surely all seen enough movies where the alien arrives and starts disintegrating the people not sensible enough to run.
Yet she, too, stayed and waited because she wanted to know.
Pan hurried up behind them, and poked his head between Noi and Madeleine. "Is it singing?"
"I’ve heard that before," Madeleine said, frowning. "A couple of times."
"It’s like an out of tune radio."
"A theremin," Nash said, leading Gavin and Shaun to stand with them at the edge of the surf. "Or very like."
"Shit, is this thing just some kind of speaker? We come from beyond the stars: it’s time for a concert?" Pan started forward, but Nash snagged the back of his shirt and pulled him to a standstill.
"Where’s Fish?" Shaun asked, looking about. "He’d hate to miss this."
Nash pointed to Fisher and Nick in the lifeguard tower, watching through the glass. "That makes a good vantage. Let’s relocate. Move slowly, so we do not draw its attention."
"But I want to draw–" Pan began, and broke off.
The glowing ball of light was changing shape.
Triangular strips opened out like the petals of an unsymmetrical flower. The shortest triangle pointed up, while two of equal length stretched left and right, with the longest unfurling downward until the ball had become a different form of star, four-pointed, glimmering white. An uneven centre band of dark blue reminded Madeleine vaguely of the body of a butterfly, though it was not actually separate from the rest of the star, merely a concentration of colour which thinned out into a filigree lace of veins.
"An angel!" someone shouted.
Madeleine blinked, but she could see the connection. The central band of blue could almost be a narrow human outline, though one with feet which trailed to a point, and no arms, or arms crossed on the chest. The thing was shaped more like a kite than any angel, a fluidly rippling one without any rigid frame. The weird, oscillating noise came again, louder, and the star-kite moved, a lazy undulation only a foot or so forward, sparking an immediate backward scatter from its audience.
"How are we going to know if it’s saying take me to your leader?" Pan asked.
"I agree with Nash," Noi murmured. "Let’s–"
The star slid sideways, quick as a piece of paper caught by the wind, turned in a moment and settled across the shoulders of a bulky, sunburned guy, who tried and failed to dodge as it landed. For a moment it looked like a hooded cloak, then it sank out of sight.
"The hell–?" Pan and Noi said in unison.
The sunburned guy stood unmoving, face blank, as the crowd around him drew back. Then he blinked, looked sharply left and right, lifted one hand and closed it, opened it.
"The noises are coming from him now!"
The sunburned guy looked toward the woman who had shouted, and she flinched back, then firmed and asked angrily: "Why have you done this? What do you want from us?"
"To–" The man paused, repeated the word, a stutter of sound, frowned then said clearly, in a distinct Western Sydney accent, "To stand still."
"Stand…?"
"Fuck."
Pan pointed, the crowd turned. Then, as one, they ran.