8. Spaceship Farm

It made Kuku endlessly nervous. It had been days since she was bound, next to Hess, but Harry seemed unsure what to do with her. After they’d pooped in the living room, he let them go outside, but didn’t unchain them. The rope around her neck was tied to some metal pipes next to the backyard doors.

With each passing day, she grew more confident that Harry would not kill her. Now, however, she was and inside a cage, and chained, and without her parents.

Those were the worst days of her life. No sleep, only worry. No way to move, only pain and fear. No warmth, only walls and cold stones.

Fortunately, Elize came by regularly. She brought a pile of paper again and pushed a pencil between Kuku’s teeth.

“What’s that? A mushroom?”

Kuku continued drawing.

“Yes, I know what a circle is. What does it mean?”

Elize understood her once she’d drawn a crude version of grain. Her face went white.

“Aliens landed here? That’s what the crop circles in our grain mean? And they’re looking for Hess … and … a pebble?”

Kuku didn’t know what the Stone of Destinydust looked like. She had drawn a regular old stone. Hess took the pencil and continued the sketch into something that, indeed, seemed more magical.

“The Stone of Destinydust!”

With her good arm, she rummaged through her school bag. She found a book and opened it to a bookmarked page.

“Yes. That’s the one!”

Her face cleared up and her nose wiggled.

“We have that thing? Below the ground? Dad always said that Chef was our ancestor. That those school books don’t say anything about how the world was ruled by animals for centuries, and only start when humans appeared. I always thought it was a fairy tale, made up to make me feel good about the farm and my family. But …”

She stood and studied the fields bathed in sunlight.

“This farm should be the prettiest and best in the world,” she mumbled. “And we’re letting it be closed down in a week. If those … aliens don’t attack earlier.”

Kuku was still surprised that she’d been able to communicate the concept of alien creatures by drawing an animal with three eyes on top of feelers. Apparently, some images or folklore remained the same among all animals.

“Is that Beatrix even an inspector?” Kuku asked Hess. “She belongs to that other organization you mentioned. The one collecting Heavenmatter. Maybe she doesn’t even have the right to close this farm!”

Hess shook his fur. “The entire idea of that organization is that it’s secret. All members have a regular job, a home, a family, as if nothing strange is going on. I don’t think this assumption will save us.”

“What then? How do we defend against a spaceship coming to get us?”

“Again, secret organization. They don’t want to be seen. Beatrix hopes the farm will close in a legal way. She waits until everything is cleared out and nobody looks at it anymore. Then she’ll take the Destinydust and me, unseen, and … she is gone.”

Elize frowned. She’d just heard a conversation of mooing and barking.

“I’m starting to understand why my friends call me crazy …”

Suddenly, several cupboards opened behind Elize. A second later, the window opened abruptly and pushed a strong wind into the room. Without a hand or paw to move it, one door unlocked and swung open, while another locked itself.

Elize crawled behind Hess, white as a sheet.

“We’re assuming the aliens will come, with a large spaceship and bright lights and whatnot,” said her trembling voice. “What if … those aliens are invisible and untouchable … and they have been walking around us all this time?”

Kuku did not understand her, but she felt her bone-chilling fear. Not long after, she and Hess realized the same thing.

This was truly a cursed place.

Everyone yelled when the living room door swung open.

No aliens. Just some regular animals. The leader of each animal species, the ones with whom Hess had met in the invisible shed several times.

Why … why were they walking around freely? In the middle of the afternoon? Where was Harry?

They walked to the outside doors.

Harry had opened the barn and unlocked the fence to the old pastures. Most animals still waited inside the barn. But once a few sheep had ventured across, most of them followed.

The pig stole Kuku’s pencil and some papers.

After a long and painful drawing, Elize picked up the paper and read it.

Sorry!

Elize crossed her arms.

“I wanted to help you. You could have escaped that day! But no, you didn’t trust me and almost killed me. I expect a bit more.”

“More?” puffed Hess. “It’s a miracle that a pig apologizes in human language!”

The pig continued drawing, grunting from exertion.

Plan?

“But … look, Harry allows you to walk around now! Everything will be better, I promise. Do you still want to leave?”

No reaction. Her face darkened.

“Well, sure, we still have no money at all. Of course you want to leave these filthy cages. But I don’t know—”

Her mouth froze halfway the next word. All followed her gaze.

Animals were rising from the grass.

The sky was clear blue. Not a spaceship in sight. Harry ran across the field and desperately grabbed a flying cow to pull it down.

Elize undid the chains on Kuku and Hess, then ran outside.

“The aliens! The aliens!”

“What?” yelled Harry.

“They are already here! They’ve been here for a while!”

Out of breath she reached the meadows. Suddenly she turned right, to the field of grain near the front gate. The animals followed, though Hess quickly fell behind, still not at full strength after the shock.

Elize extended her arms and paused just before the first crop circle.

“This grain circle is not a footprint left behind,” she said. “That rocket is still there.”

The weather took a dark turn. Sunny skies turned into darkest nights. Lightning strikes rumbled and zigzagged, until they all ended in the sharp tip of a tall rocket.

The spaceship had wings on all sides. It looked like a mushroom with a parasol. Left and right, this parasol sucked sheep and cows to itself, lifting them into the air.

Below the rocket, half the soil had been destroyed. Multiple drills, thick as tree trunks, twisted and dug deeper and deeper holes.

“They’ve been looking for the Destinydust for weeks,” said Kuku.

“The must have found some pieces already,” said Hess, panting. “Otherwise they couldn’t have hidden this from us. In fact …”

Hess pointed his snout at the left wing. It was larger than the others and painted a slightly different color blue. He had to scream to cut through the noise.

“The Windgustwing! That amplifies everything. All gods—how many Heavenly Objects do they already have!?”

The wind picked up. The rocket seemed the center point of a sudden tornado. Harry clamped the fence to prevent gaining wings himself. Elize held herself to the ground by clinging to a horse.

A white van traveled over their gravel path. Beatrix stepped out and smiled.

“Well, that was fun while it lasted,” she said with pretend kindness. “We’ll leave soon, don’t you worry.”

“Who are you?” screamed Harry.

The gusts of wind tore the wooden planks of the barn, which he’d attached in a panic to pass the first inspection. Several windows of their home burst, while fences stood increasingly slanted.

“And if you don’t mind, we’ll take your watchdog too.”

“We do mind,” said Elize.

“Ah, well, even if you do mind, we’ll still take him.”

A latch opened at the spaceship’s side. Bright green bursts of light shot out, like a giant spotlight to take a closer look at Hess. The bundle of light pulled on his fur, snatched at it as if to pluck him bare.

The Hespryhound stood firm and dug his claws deeper into the mud.

“Maybe you get me. But you will never get the Destinydust.”

“Oh? We’ve progressed quite far already.”

“How long? Weeks? Months? Years?”

Irritation flashed over Beatrix’ face. She quickly plastered a smile on top of it.

“We are almost there.”

“I buried the Stone with magic that protects it from being easily stolen. Hurt me or my friends, and you will never learn the secret. You’ll be digging for centuries.”

Latches opened on all sides of the spaceship. Their entire might was trained on Hess, trying to lift him off the ground and catch him in a beam.

Unsatisfied with the results, the aliens also fired electrical bullets at random targets. Green flashes of light burned through fences or lit trees on fire. Yellow squarish lights reached the water troughs, which turned into wild fountains and waterfalls. Red lasers rained down on the animals roaming the meadows, which longingly looked at the safety of their barn now.

A purple bullet aimed at one of the barns and made it explode.

Hess turned around and trudged away casually. As if the farm at his back wasn’t on fire.

“Then the Destinydust will never be yours.”

Kuku couldn’t believe her eyes. Hess stayed so calm. They just could not lift him off the ground. He had been alive since the dawn of time, had seen everything and everyone. She could see it now.

Their attackers stopped firing.

“We negotiate!” Beatrix said. “What can we give, to get Hess and the Stone of Destinydust in return? Gold? Power? Secrets? A positive inspection of your farm? Say the word.”

“Nothing,” said Hess. “Never would I help those who killed my beloved Feria.”

To the others, dear reader, this conversation happened in a foreign language that even humans could not figure out. Though many words sounded vaguely familiar. I often wished I had told the Hespryhound how proud I was of him, when I still could. That I commended his bravery, but that it was okay—it was okay to give up the fight, for Feria had died so long … so long ago …

Beatrix’ teeth clenched until they broke. Her smile was far gone now.

“Oh well. The farm will close in a few days anyway. Why don’t we start the demolition work early?”

The spaceship revealed all its weapons and shot without mercy.