To tell the truth, I don’t know what I was thinking. It just made that weird kind of sense to me. It might be nothing more than a bizarre coincidence, but maybe "coincidence" was a name given to things by people who just haven’t spotted a connection yet.
Kate and Mr Peterson had joined us and were looking at the silos too.
"I’ve never liked those things," Kate said. "I’ve always thought they were incredibly ugly."
She had a point. Like concrete lighthouses without lights to burn or ships to warn, the silos were local landmarks that probably featured in most travel directions given to nonlocals. They were dull and grey and rose far above anything else.
"I think we should take a closer look," Lilly said.
It was kind of nice that she had faith in one of my hunches.
Kate O’Donnell shook her head.
"And why would we want to look at a couple of grain silos?" she asked, a sarcastic tone creeping into her voice. "Unless we’re saying that Kyle’s alien invasion is suddenly wheat-based?"
"Er . . . because it might be important." Lilly’s response was sarcastic too.
"It sounds more like a wild goose chase to me," Kate said crossly. "I say we keep walking, see how far this phenomenon extends."
Lilly pursed her lips, put her hands on her hips.
"And I say we go and check out a possible lead," she said, firmly.
"A lead?" Kate said. "What is this? An American cop show?"
"Look," I said, "why don’t you and Mr Peterson wait here? Lilly and I will go and check out the silos. It’s probably nothing, but…"
"But?"
"There might be an answer there," I finished. "Something other than grain."
Kate shook her head.
"We’ll give you fifteen minutes," she said. "Then Rodney and I are walking."
"Fair enough," I said, then turned to Lilly. "You up for this?"
"Of course," she said, and we set out towards the concrete towers.
Chapter 30
The sky was darkening, it seemed, with every step we took down the rutted track that led to Naylor’s farm. Empty fields stretched around us on each side and I suddenly felt very vulnerable and afraid.
There was probably nothing waiting at the end of this side-quest, but that wasn’t the point. At least we were doing something.
I think Lilly felt this sense of purpose too.
"Do you even believe in UFOs?" she asked me.
"Sure," I said. "It just means the flying object was unidentified. It doesn’t necessarily mean there are aliens aboard."
She tutted.
"What?"
"I just wanted to know if you thought we were going to find anything, you know, weird, in those silos."
It seemed that as soon as Lilly’s words were out there was a sudden, uncanny glow from up ahead. It wasn’t even full dark yet, more like a murky twilight, but we could see a sickly light shining brighter than the air around it, a light that seemed… different . . . to any light I had seen before. It seemed grainy, somehow, as if it were made of particles in the air up ahead.
We stopped in our tracks and looked ahead.
Instinctively, I put a protective arm around Lilly’s shoulders. When I realized what I had done I was half-expecting her to throw me off, or to say something sarcastic, but she didn’t do either.
So I hugged her to me, wishing that things were different between us.
When we got out of this—if we got out of this—I would try to make things up to her.
I squeezed her shoulder and we walked towards the light.
Chapter 31
Light is supposed to be reassuring. You learn that when you’re very young. It defeats the bad things creeping around in your room.
Every parent knows the magic gesture that chases the monsters away.
Click.
Let there be light.
Here, though, light was kind of the problem.
It looked wrong and I suddenly remembered what Mr Peterson had said earlier, about things from this world looking like they belonged in this world; that they followed rules that allowed us to recognize them, allowed us to understand them.
It had sounded like mad ravings at the time, but now I knew exactly what he had been talking about.
The light we were walking into didn’t look as if it belonged here at all.
I had no idea how we should be approaching the silos, how much stealth we needed.
In the end, however, we just walked perfectly normally towards them.
Ordinarily, light illuminates pretty much everything in its path, but this seemed more selective in its illumination. It clumped around objects and highlighted them, while leaving empty areas relatively dark.
Intelligent light? I remember thinking. How is that even possible?
"Look," Lilly said, and showed me her arm. "Look at this."
I could see Lilly’s bare arm, but I could see more than that. The particles of light had clustered around her limb and I could see dark lines running along the skin, branching off, connecting to other lines, filling Lilly’s arm.
Then it became clear to me exactly what the light was showing me and I felt a little sick.
I was seeing through Lilly’s skin to the veins and arteries beneath. I looked closer and could even see the blood pumping through her.
"You have to admit," Lilly said, "that this is pretty damned cool."
I nodded, suddenly mute.
"I reckon we’re in the right place," she said. "Let’s go get a look inside those silos."
Chapter 32
We were about twenty meters from the first of the silos when a group of people appeared around the corner in front of us, heading the same way. I gestured for Lilly to get out of sight and jogged for cover at the side of the yard.
As the group drew closer to us I realized that I knew most of them. Five members of the Naylor family, including old man Naylor himself, were leading a young woman towards the silo.
Lilly was pointing at the young woman, mouthing something, but there was a rushing sound in my ears and a cold, leaden feeling moving swiftly down my spine.
I recognized her.
I recognized her all too well.
I’d lived next door to her my whole life.
It was Annette Birnie, Danny’s sister.
She didn’t look like she was doing too well. Her hair, normally straight and neat and perfectly arranged, was a wild tangled mess, and the face it framed was pale and drawn. Dark skin ringed her eyes. She was moving in a halting fashion, as if she were in shock, and every few steps one of the Naylor family would push her forwards to hurry her up.
"She’s one of us," Lilly whispered, with horror in her voice. "She’s one of the 0.4 and she’s been alone since it happened. We had each other, Kate O’Donnell, Mr Peterson. She had no one. No one at all."
I knew that Lilly was right and felt a horrible pang of sympathy. To have been completely alone through all of this, I couldn’t even begin to think how that must have felt. She must have thought she was losing her mind.
"We should have found her, helped her," Lilly said.
"We didn’t know," I said. "We just didn’t know."
"Danny hypnotized her too," Lilly said crossly. "We should have known."
"He hypnotized her days ago," I countered. "Why would that have affected her today?"