I smiled despite myself. It had been Halloween. Graham had dressed up as Steve Irwin, binding his breasts until he could barely breathe, while I had dressed as Audrey from the musical Little Shop of Horrors, poking fun at what I knew the other students thought of me and putting my own breasts on convenient display at the same time. I’d been trying to get Graham to like me. He had … but he’d also been too enthusiastic about his binding, and he’d passed out from lack of air in the middle of our embrace. I’d wound up supporting him, screaming about how I’d killed my boyfriend, until someone called campus medical. Not exactly the sort of first date that makes the world believe in romance.

“I remember,” I said, and sighed. “I’m sorry. This is complicated for me, too.”

“Yeah.” He was quiet for a moment before he asked, “Stasia? You’d tell me if there was a way to make this less dangerous, wouldn’t you?”

He was still being so careful not to question the invasion. I couldn’t decide whether that was because he truly believed me, or whether it was because he had long since decided it was better not to argue with me about whether or not I came from outer space. In the end, it didn’t matter. The invasion was coming, whether he believed in it or not. Whether anyone believed in it or not. The invasion didn’t care whether people believed it. It was a fact, as implacable as gravity or the speed of light, and it was going to happen no matter what anybody had to say on the matter.

“I would,” I said, and I meant it. If I had known exactly what form the invasion was going to take, the shape of any places that might escape their notice, I would have drawn him a map. I loved him. I wanted him to be safe.

That, too, was a part of cultural literacy: having the connections within a community to care about the people it contained. Again, something about the thought gnawed at me, like there was something in the shape of the concept that would tell me everything I still needed to know. The inside of my elbow itched for the first time since I’d stepped into the trees. I scratched it idly, and felt skin tear beneath my nails. Felt the strange, almost-lumpy shape of the flesh beneath.

The edge of the forest caught us like a knife’s edge, so abrupt it was almost unbelievable. One moment we were walking through the trees, and the next we were stepping onto a muddy embankment, with only a few feet separating us and the road. A white van was parked there, a radio station’s logo and call sign on the side. The distinguishing markings were more than half-covered with mud, making them more of a puzzle than anything else. Was that a 5, or the letter S, or something else? Was that a falcon or the curve of a very strange wolf’s flank?