Sta.r.s.eed.

Liz Gruder.

This book is dedicated to:.

Casey Gruder, Kenneth Vinet, Patricia B. Smith & of course, Mom.

Your love, support & feedback were appreciated.

I love you all.

The folks at Wido: Karen, Summer & Allie.

Your encouragement and savvy made this book possible.

Thank you.

And to Sta.r.s.eeds everywhere.

May your hearts & minds awaken to your own awesome power to seed this world into a golden age of love, light and peace.

Chapter 1.

For as long as Kaila Guidry could remember, she wore caps with layers of black Velostat film hidden inside-a kind of plastic resembling double-strength garbage bags. Her mother never permitted Kaila to go hatless; her long blonde hair never hung freely under the sun. Hats of varied sorts were as common to Kaila as socks.

"Socks protect your feet," her mom counseled. "Hats protect your mind."

As a kid, Kaila never questioned this dictum since her mother and grandmother also wore protective headgear and she had little contact with the outside world. But now, at sixteen, nearly everything her family did and thought struck her as completely r.e.t.a.r.ded.

They lived one step out of the Stone Age, shunning cable TV for a handful of snoozer local stations, chaperoning her Blockbuster DVD selections, and only permitting a computer a few months ago. Going online made Kaila painfully aware that an expansive universe existed outside her home on acres of land and forest, the nearest neighbor a mile away.

Other girls' families didn't jail them with only dogs and horses as companions. Other girls had pretty hair that they didn't hide and cover with loser hats. They went to movies, parties, and concerts. They had crushes. And rather than only far-off strangers accepting their Facebook friend requests-they had real, flesh-and-blood friends.

And her family thought they might placate her with a machine!

The pull chain on the kitchen ceiling fan clicked on the turning blades; its tap-tap-tap steadily kindling Kaila's aggravation. Outside, the Louisiana humidity burned hot as a boiler room. The silence in and around the old house made Kaila want to scream.

Her stepfather Mike, a Mississippi River tugboat captain, snored in an armchair in the living room adjoining the kitchen. Her Paw Paw, his head bald from chemotherapy, also dozed. Though they might sleep their lives away, Kaila would be d.a.m.ned if she'd rot in this mausoleum one more minute.

"I'm not wearing these stupid hats anymore!" Kaila ripped the gray baseball cap from her head and flung it away like a Frisbee. Her blonde hair spilled over her shoulders.

Her mother's thick gla.s.ses magnified the bags under her eyes while her unruly black ponytail escaped the protective confines of her own baseball cap. She s.n.a.t.c.hed Kaila's hat from the floor.

"Put it on," she commanded.

"No," Kaila shouted. "You never let me go anywhere, do anything. I'm dying in this crypt."

"Put this hat on now."

"No." Kaila narrowed her eyes. "We're like freaking pioneers-we don't even have cable TV. It's ridiculous!"

Before her mother could respond, Kaila launched her true missile of intent. "I don't want to be home schooled anymore. I want to go to a real school. I want friends. I want a life!"

Her mother wrestled with Kaila over the table, trying to force the hat on her head.

"Get off me!" Kaila pushed her mother.

The legs of her chair grated on the ceramic tiles. Under the table, Lucy, a black Labrador, yelped. Woofy, the other house dog, a small mutt with flaxen-colored fur, bolted and scrambled onto Mike's lap.

Kaila grew short of breath. She thrust out her four-fingered hand and with her right palm reached for her inhaler. She puffed and inhaled, holding the aerosol inhalant in her lungs. No wonder she couldn't breathe. All these old people were suffocating her to death.

Her grandmother Nan ambled into the kitchen. A large woman, she wore a lime-green blouse and a maroon bell-shaped hat that hid her white hair.

"Kaila," Nan said. "What's wrong?"

"I can't stand it!" Kaila cried. "I'm stuck here like a prisoner in solitary confinement. I just can't-" She balled her fists, seething with pent-up frustration.

The globe light of the ceiling fan shattered. Gla.s.s shards a.s.sailed the kitchen table. Her mother shrieked. Mike and Paw Paw jolted upright from their naps.

Kaila winced. Lights tended to explode when her emotions ran high. She shot up, ran through the house to the back bathroom, and locked the door.

Her hair, which fell to the middle of her back, was the color of sunlight. She had the right to show it-like everyone else on this planet. Good riddance to that hot, itchy hat!

She lined her eyelids with a violet eye pencil she'd taken from her mother's dresser. The eyeliner enhanced the depth and electric blue of her huge eyes; it also drew attention away from her tiny nose and mouth.

"Kaila, you open this door," her mother shouted.

Kaila stared at her reflection. She wasn't bad-looking. Maybe too large of a head. Was she really an "egghead" like that boy had said in Wal-Mart? Seeing her three long slender fingers and a thumb on her left hand, the boy had also teased her as a "claw-monster."

She was different, but she wasn't a monster.

"Kaila!" Her mother pounded on the locked bathroom door.

Why couldn't her mother leave her alone? She'd shut her out, paint her eyelids with this cool silver metallic eye shadow and pretend she was getting ready for a date.

She'd fall in love, oh he was so d.a.m.n hot and fun and smart, made her laugh and understood her like no one here ever would. They'd run away-far away-to another world. . . .

Her stepfather banged on the bathroom door.

"Kaila," Mike yelled. "Open this d.a.m.ned door. If you don't, I swear I'll knock it down."

Kaila went to the window, tried to unlatch it. The thing hadn't been opened in fifty years. A dormant fly buzzed near-death on the sill. It was trapped, seeing a tantalizing kaleidoscope outside world with its compound eyes.

"Young lady, open this door," Mike called again.

"You're not my father. I don't have to listen to you."

"I am your father."

"You are not. I don't even have a father!"

She didn't know who her real father was, and her mother downright refused to speak of him.

"Kaaai-la!" Her mother sounded desperate.

Nan slapped the door. "Open this door, Kaila."

What the h.e.l.l? She couldn't even breathe in the bathroom without the entire family trying to monitor her every breath.

Then, without warning, something invisible, yet razor-like slashed through Kaila's forehead between her eyes. Inside her mind, lightning struck. It flashed down her throat, straight to the middle of her heart with a thunderous jolt. The intensity of pain in her chest made her shake.

Scared, she staggered and unlocked the door.

Her mother was on her knees, eyes wide beneath her gla.s.ses. Her own cap had fallen to the floor, but she gripped Kaila's hat as a lifeline.

Alarmed, Kaila pushed through Mike and Nan to get to her. "Mom, it's okay. I'm here. Get up."

"Put on this cap."

Kaila heard, but more so, felt the desperation, and worse, the fear. Her mother's fevered emotions were being transmitted to her sharp as a pike of lightning. Kaila quivered with the intensity of the emotional storm; she desperately tried to erect some umbrella or block to lessen the a.s.sault. But to no avail.

"They'll come for you," her mother said in a high pitch. "Please. Put it on!"

"Who will come for me?" Kaila asked in a rough whisper.

Enfolding her arms around Kaila, her mother pressed her thin body close like a shield. She nuzzled her cheek against her daughter's and Kaila saw bizarre images: shadows, flashes of blinding white light, spindly four-fingered hands. A pervasive other-world odor-something metallic or medicinal. Her mother, lying naked on a metal table: things in her body.

Kaila felt paralyzed like her mom in the vision. What in h.e.l.l had happened to her? As nausea rolled through Kaila, she jerked her head away.

But again, her mother drew her near, and she received another vision: a dark two-lane country highway and headlights of an oncoming car. A sickening swerve, then a hard jolt, metal on metal, pain so intense she went blind. Darkness.

Kaila knew her mother had been in a car crash while pregnant with her. The accident explained her finger deformity. Was she seeing her mother's past?

The vision reverted to the first with the terrifying white light, the metal table and the huge black eyes of those creatures. Their eyes commandeered their victims to do whatever they wanted.

Kaila knew her mother's terror, paralyzed on the table like in surgery but awake, unable to move or communicate, only her mind screaming. The fear trans.m.u.ted to Kaila like lightning ripping apart the dark skies of time and s.p.a.ce.

Oh, G.o.d! She had to stop this!

Kaila moved away from her mother, s.n.a.t.c.hed the baseball cap, and pushed it on her head. She heard the plastic crinkle. Instantly, her mind cleared.

"Thank you, baby," her mother gasped. "Never, ever, do that again." She wrapped her arms around Kaila.

"I'm not a baby." Kaila shrugged out of her mother's grasp. The hairs on her neck and arms stood on end and her stomach sickeningly coiled as she tried to sort out what had just happened.

Woofy nudged Kaila's knee with his wet nose. His ears were back and one sad brown eye peeped out below sandy hair. Breathless, she petted the dog.

"No, I'm not going to run away," Kaila said. Woofy c.o.c.ked his head.

"Okay, you caught me," she admitted. "I'm lying. Yes, I am going to run away unless they let me go to school."

Woofy crouched on his paws, his haunches raised, as he barked vehemently.

"Well, at least you have Lucy to play with," Kaila countered.

"Stop," Mike said. "It's like you're actually talking to the d.a.m.n dog."

Kaila moved her large eyes up at her stepfather. He was such a jerk. She began to boil again. No one understood. She wanted out, out, out!

As Woofy barked into a frenzy, Kaila grew exasperated. She shouted at the dog, "I am not being selfish. Yes, yes, I love you, I'm not going to leave you-I just," her voice cracked. "I'm lonely! Can't you freaking understand?"

Then, the fire alarm in the hall sounded its high-pitched beeping.

Everyone in the hallway looked up at the alarm.

"Aarrgh!" Kaila cried as she s.n.a.t.c.hed a stool from the bathroom. Standing on the stool, she reached up and reset the alarm. She stared down at her family, crowded in the hallway.

"I'm calm now," she lied, drawing a breath. "But I am-hear me clearly-I am going to school."

She cast her gaze on Woofy. "And not another word from you either."

Kaila stood alone on the street corner waiting for the school bus. Lucy and Woofy tried to follow, but Mike held their collars. Everyone stood outside the house, watching her trudge down the long clam-sh.e.l.l road leading away from the house out to the rural road.

The Guidrys lived in a two-story American Greek Revival style manor, the family home since 1837. Elegant, with its white brick facade, stately columns, black shutters and two chimneys, the house showed signs of age. Still, the Guidry family held claim to the land-seven acres in Bush, Louisiana, replete with horse stables, duck pond, open fields, and piney woods.

Though it was a trek to the bus stop, Kaila was adamant that she go alone. There was no way she'd be seen at the bus stop with her family.

Her mother had made a comment about her being bull-headed and that high school wasn't the fairytale she expected, that there were a lot of rough, mean people in the world.

Kaila had simply smiled; she had won the war and that's what counted. Winning had even included cable TV, although by the time school started, she was sick of vicariously viewing other people's lives.

It was August and though early morning, hot and humid. Below her t-shirt, sweat trickled down her side.

Kaila wore a long blonde wig that resembled her own hair, with the black Velostat plastic wrapped underneath in layers around her head. The false hair proved hotter than the hats, but it was the only way her mother would permit her to go to school. Since the dress code didn't allow hats, the wig seemed a small concession to receive parole.

Except for tree frogs and crickets trilling in the bushes, it was quiet at the intersection. Then, she heard the shifting gears of the bus. Kaila hid her left hand in her jeans pocket.

The bus stopped and the door opened. The students stared as she walked down the aisle. She flopped into the first empty seat and peered around. There was a girl with jet-black hair and heavy eyeliner. Another girl with long brown hair, shimmering eye shadow, and pink lipstick, wore a hot pink blouse.

Kaila glanced down at her faded jeans and short-sleeve, navy t-shirt. Soon as she got to school, she'd apply the makeup she had stashed in her book bag.