reincarnation, n. 1, the belief that the soul reappears after death in another and different bodily form; 2, the rebirth of the soul in a new body.- v.t. re'in-car'nate
-from the Winston Canadian Dictionary for Schools
Florida, 1967
They had been there in the sky for hundreds of years, undetected, waiting, readying. Generations of them were born and generations of them died on the great ships, waiting for the planet below them to ripen.
They had a home, but not like this one. Yes, when they first found it, it was crude and undeveloped, but all the right things were there. They gave it time and, eventually, it did become what they had known it had the potential to be.
And so, finally, they began preparations to take it.
Joseph Reuben knew all this. He was professor of astronomy at a small Florida university, and had been obsessed with the skies ever since he had seen one of them kill his parents when he was five years old. Despite his youth at the time, he remembered every detail: the way its seemingly human form had broken apart to reveal a different being- grey-skinned without hair, eyes black and bulging, hands four-fingered, too large, and bony. He knew that it had snapped his parents' necks, although it never touched him, and he remembered how he had felt it intrude into his mind for a moment before it had climbed into a small saucer parked in his Ontario soybean field and disappeared.
The three men with him had similar experiences to share. Halloway was a tall, broad-shouldered, heavy man in his mid-30s, fair-haired, who never smiled. John Michael was only twenty-four, confined to a wheelchair because of how badly "they" had mangled his legs. He was thin, pale, and quiet, peering at everything through thick glasses. Raynor, 36, was the only black man among the four and was in the habit of talking too quickly and chain smoking. Lastly, there was Joseph, tall, thin, and nearly forty, with greying hair, an unkempt beard, and a passion for tweed. Even that summer night, while the men built a fire in the empty field, he was wearing tweed pants.
The small town of Ruskin, then only a gathering of six houses, lay a mile away, but it was oblivious to the events of that night.
"John, did you write it all down?" Joseph asked.
John Michael clutched a hardcover composition book. "Yes, sir."
"You shouldn't have let the kid do it," Raynor said through a cigarrette.
"I did it fine."
"Why'd you let the kid do it?"
"I did it fine," repeated John Michael, sweat visible on his brow.
"Good," Joseph said in a calm voice. "Give it here." John Michael somewhat reluctantly handed the book over. "Halloway, do you have the stones?"
Halloway silently handed him a leather bag. Joseph loosened its drawstring and carefully removed five translucent gems, each perfectly circular. One was green, one was blue, one was red, one was yellow, and one was orange.
"Why can't we do it ourselves?" John Michael asked softly.
"Because we're too old and out of shape, and you... well..." Joseph trailed off, and John Michael stared at his useless legs.
"I ain't too sure about this," Raynor said quickly, while his gaze shifted from Halloway to Joseph and back. "This is crazy shit. You can get locked up in the crazy bin for this kind of shit."
"We can't beat them with science. This is all we have."
"So we gotta' try some sort of crazy mumblin' and abracadabra? This is fucked. You guys are all fucked."
"Shut your mouth," Halloway snarled.
"Fuck you," Raynor retorted.
The two men glared at each other until Raynor looked away and lit another cigarrette.
"It worked last time with the opal," Joseph said, only to break the silence.
"You don't know that. No one's found it yet," contested Halloway.
"When it's time, someone will. You don't know someone hasn't found it."
They watched from a distance, silent and undisguised, low to the ground to keep their grey skin from contrasting with the black sky. Exactly what the group of men were doing was not clear, but each of the four had known for too long and they could not be allowed to create any trouble. The men were huddled close around a fire, speaking quietly in a language their observers did not understand. They could see something glittering in the open palm of the eldest one. After half an hour, the men moved away from the fire.
Halloway, Raynor and Joseph dug a hole with shovels while John Michael watched, holding the bag of stones and the composition book, which he was wrapping in plastic to preserve it.
"Do you think the spell worked?" he asked. He felt very uneasy, although he didn't know the reason.
"I think so. We cast it correctly, in the same way as I did with the opal in '65. You saw the stones glow." Their eyes met and John Michael nodded.
"But what if the wrong people find it? That much power-"
"They can't," Joseph said, grunting with the exertion of digging. "The spell ensures it. Don't worry."
John Michael decided that it was only the near-playing God that was making him uncomfortable. Minutes later, he gave the book and bag to Raynor, who baried them while the other two put out the fire.
"I still think you guys are fucked in the head," mumbled Raynor.
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