My Body is a Cage and Other Stories

“Can’t you feel it?” She is shivering even though it isn’t cold, and when he offers her his
hoodie, she takes it.
It feels like it did twelve years ago. Tucked intoher bed, puppeteering her teddy bears in
a pretend, insomniacal tea party. And then somethingshifted, and there was someone standing at
the foot of her bed. Looking at her. It didn’t usetelepathy to speak to her, as many survivors
report, or take her aboard a ship to be stripped andpricked and examined. It just observed her.
The fear in her chest at that moment has never beenreplicated in her entire life. She was frozen,
unable to scream or move or blink. After a few moments,the air seemed to warp and the being
was gone. Astrid laid there for several minutes, andwhen she finally got up to tell her mother,
she realized she’d wet the bed. Her mother was angry.Not at her, but at Them. She believed that
she’d brought this upon her daughter, that she hadsomehow caught Their attention with her
experiments and camping trips and research and that’swhy They came. A few days after that,
Donna seemed to come to a conclusion. She sat Astriddown, and effectively explained to her
that since there really is no way to protect yourselffrom being visited by Them, she would have
to learn to be unafraid. To be curious, friendly,even, if the situation called for it. But to never,
ever, ever show fear. That was the only time Astridwas visited. She wonders if her mother
showed any fear when They took her a few days ago.
She charges Ezra with watching the skies while shemonitors the rest of the equipment,
because something will happen tonight. He has beenlooking up through the binoculars for about
ten minutes when Astrid snaps a picture of him withhis own camera. He takes it from her, but
obeys when she tells him not to delete it. You looklike a little kid, she says. In the photo his
mouth hangs open slightly and his eyes are bright,as if witnessing something brilliant. Which
she suspects he is about to.