Page 16 of Mated to the Grumpy Alien

I step out of the building, looking from the stream to the toilet and then to Irick. “That’s nifty.”

He nods, his chest puffing out a little as if he’s basking in my praise. “When I scavenged the elimination facility from the wrecked ship, this seemed the logical place to install it.”

I let my mind skip across the troubling parts of that sentence as I walk along the stream for a few moments, Irick falling into step beside me.

Once we’re several yards from the porta potty, I stop and nod toward the stream. “Is the water clean here?”

“Yes. But if you wish something to drink, I have spiced tea back for you in the cave.”

As soon as he says it, I realize how thirsty I am. But I don’t need a drink just yet, and I’m not ready to return to the cave. Instead, I squat by the water and dip my hands, rubbing them together, and then shake the water off when I stand.

Five years as a high school teacher has taught me the importance of washing my hands as often as possible.

When I turn back to see him watching me, he’s smiling. “I’m pleased that your people value cleanliness as much as mine do.”

“About that…” In the silvery moonlight, his skin tone looks almost human. Even though I know in my gut he’s not. “Lay it on me, Irick of handbags. Where are you from? Really? I know it’s not Earth.” I gesture with one hand to the fancy porta potty and with the other to the back of my neck, where apparently he installed some kind of universal translator straight out of Star Trek. “I know all of this isn’t modern human technology, let alone technology from here. So where are you from?”

I expect a verbal answer, but instead he pulls me to him, turning my back to his chest, wrapping one arm around my waist and raising his other to point to the sky.

The moon has nearly dipped below the horizon now and the vast starry sky is more visible. Even with the remaining moonlight, I can see more stars in this sky than I’ve seen anywhere outside a field trip to a planetarium. The sky is still familiar. I’m still on earth. It’s just an earth without the ambient light of eight billion people.

It is still surprising and unfamiliar to me to not be uncomfortable with his physical nearness. Instead, his heavy strength at my back only bolsters my courage, reminding me that I’m not alone in this new world.

He gestures to the vast swath of stars spilled across the night sky. “You are familiar with the River of the Heavens?”

“Yes. The Milky Way. That’s what we call it.”

He’s tall enough that when we stand like this, his chin brushes my temple, and I can feel him nod. “Yes. The Milky Way.” He shifts slightly, and I feel as if he’s turning his head to look at me. “Like the dairy you mentioned liking?”

I laugh in surprise. He caught that? Out of all the nonsense I rambled, he remembered that? I shouldn’t be able to laugh under the circumstances, since my world has been upended, but I do laugh. “Not the same kind of dairy. It’s a metaphor. Because there are so many stars. It makes the sky look white like spilled milk.”

“Yes. I see that.” I feel his chin against my temple again as he gestures to the Milky Way. “My people call it the River of the Heavens, because all water is sacred, the waters that brought us the Sullec Prophets.”

“The what now?”

“I’ll tell you of them later, Shuka, but see that cluster there? The one that looks like a dagger?”

I followed the line of his finger and nod. “We call that constellation Orion. There is his belt, and his sword.”

“That is where Perse is.”

“So somewhere up there, in a solar system near Orion, there’s a planet called Perse and that’s where you’re from,” I say softly, still trying to wrap my brain around it. Although it’s easier than it should be, considering movies made me think that aliens would be lizard people or slimy giant bugs eager to plant their larva in my mouth. “You’re a long way from home.”

“No farther than you.”

I turn to face him. He doesn’t release me, but allows his grasp on my waist to shift from one side to the other when I turn. “Where am I? Exactly? Because this sky is my night sky. I know I’m on Earth. But this is like no earth I’ve ever been on. So where am I?”

“If you had to guess? What would your guess be?”

I draw in a breath, the air that fills my lungs is surprisingly warm, scented with flowers, and moonlight, and with him.

“If I had to guess,” I say slowly, barely willing to admit it to myself, “I would say I’m asking the wrong question. It’s not a matter of where I am, but when I am.”

“Your guest would be correct.”

I draw in another slow breath, half expecting panic to hit, but somehow knowing that it won’t, because Irick is here. Because as scary as this is, I am not alone.

“Am I in the future? Some distant post-apocalyptic future? Or the past?”