Chapter 2

Aru presses one finger to the crater pod’s glass, exactly over the burned initials: E.K.

The rain kept falling, but nobody under it moved.

Briar’s torn glove lay in the mud, the fingers still smoking.

The silver mark on her wrist had spread to her elbow.

She could hear Mace breathing behind her.

Then a flashlight cut through the pines above the access road.

Lorna Kincaid came down the slope with a long steel pry bar in one hand.

She did not slip once.

Her boots found the dry stones as if she had walked this dark before.

“Briar.”

“Mom.”

“Step back from the pod.”

“There’s a woman inside.”

Lorna set her light on the ground and picked up the toolbox.

She closed the lid with both hands.

“Mace, kill your high beams.”

Mace didn’t move.

“Lorna, what the hell is that thing?”

“A mistake that should have stayed asleep.”

She carried the toolbox to the rear of the pod and set it down.

“Keep your voice low.”

Briar stayed where she was.

The silver along her arm had cooled, but it still tightened when she looked at Aru.

Inside the glass, Aru’s four fingers pressed flat.

Lorna reached up and placed two fingers over the same spot.

She drew a shape that looked like three mountains joined at the base.

Aru let out a long, clicking breath.

A warm amber line ran through the cabin wall.

“She’s asking for the mountain beacon,” Lorna said.

“What beacon?” Briar said.

“The one we guard.”

Mace’s flashlight beam shook.

“I didn’t sign on for any of this.”

Lorna turned to him.

“You signed on eight years ago.”

She pulled a folded paper from her jacket.

“You’ll tell the sheriff it was a snapped powerline and a rock slide, or I’ll show this to the county.”

Mace took the paper.

He opened it once, then folded it into a small square.

“You paid my mortgage.”

“Eighty-six thousand four hundred dollars,” Lorna said. “I didn’t do it for the view.”

Briar’s jaw felt tight.

“You both knew this road was off-limits because of something inside the mountain.”

“I knew she wanted privacy,” Mace said. “I didn’t know it was a woman in a metal box.”

Lorna drew a slow line in the mud with the pry bar.

It matched the shape she had made on the glass.

“The Kincaids have kept this mountain since 1619. We weren’t sent here to keep a crash quiet because it was ours. We were sent to keep it quiet because the rest of them could come back.”

“Them?” Briar said.

“The people who made the pod.”

She turned to look at Briar.

“Aru is one of us in the way that matters. Her people and ours are the same, a long way back. You woke the call.”

The pod display pulsed.

Saturday, 4:05 a.m.

Briar felt the numbers like a held breath.

“What happens Saturday?”

Lorna lifted the toolbox.

“The ship that comes back doesn’t know Earth has people.”

Mace sat down on a wet stone.

“Then why in God’s name would you keep the road private instead of blowing the damn thing up?”

Lorna didn’t answer.

She looked at Briar.

“You have to come with me now.”

“No.”

Briar stepped toward her mother.

“You have to tell me why the pod knew my name.”

“Because you’re a Kincaid.”

“So are you.”

“I’m only the keeper.” Lorna’s voice went clipped. “You’re the key.”

Briar’s hand rose.

The mark on her arm flashed once, as if it had been called.

Aru tapped the glass again, slower now, four taps over E.K.

Briar knew then that the toolbox had always been waiting for her.

She had just never been told what it opened.

“Mom.” She said it low. “What have we been hiding?”

Lorna stepped between Briar and the pod.

“Not a hiding place. A welcome mat.”

“For what?”

“For a vessel that comes to change the sky.”

Mace’s head came up.

“Then you got to let the sheriff’s people take it.”

“The sheriff’s people can’t stop it.” Lorna tucked the folded paper back into her coat. “And if they try, they’ll start a fight we don’t survive.”

She grabbed Briar’s arm above the elbow.

“Briar, waking the pod may have put every living person on Earth in danger.”