As we contorted our mouths in an attempt to get it right, the boy turned on his heel and fled.

By the time we remembered how, it was too late. In unison we reached out our hands to him in what we hoped was a gesture of reassurance. He scrambled to his feet and stood transfixed for several seconds, caught between alarm and curiosity. Whatever the reason, the boy lost his balance, swerved his bike, and crashed into the gutter. Perhaps it was the way we looked at our limbs, as though we had no idea what to do with them, or the water vapor still clinging to our hair. Despite our human form, something about us startled him-perhaps it was our skin, which was as luminous as the moon or our loose white traveling garments, which were in tatters from the turbulent descent. He looked up just in time to see a column of white light receding into the clouds, leaving three wraithlike strangers in the middle of the road. A Jack Russell terrier barking from behind a gate caused him to glance up and alerted him to our arrival. The newspapers hit the driveways and verandas with a thud, and the boy smiled smugly whenever he estimated right. He seemed to be playing a mental game with himself to estimate where exactly he could get each paper to land. It was misty and the boy was wearing a hooded jacket. He was on his bicycle with the newspapers rolled like batons in plastic wrap. We had hoped our descent would go unnoticed, which it mainly did, save for a thirteen-year-old boy doing a paper round. I remember it was almost dawn when we landed because the streetlights were still on.

Descent Our arrival didn’t exactly go as planned.

Halo alexandra adornetto series