About ten minutes after Mom, Dad, and I go outside, Dr. Wilson comes stomping out, muttering under his breath. He sticks his head around the corner of the house and yells, "Alright, pack it up! We're leaving!"

Mom goes to look at whatever Dr. Wilson's shouting at. "You can't just conduct tests on our property!" she yells suddenly.

Dad and I both look at her.

"Don't you need a warrant or something?" she demands, stepping up to Dr. Wilson. "You at least need permission, this could be a violation of our rights!"

"Mrs. Everett, we're not damaging your property," Dr. Wilson says coldly. "Relax."

"Get them out of here," Mom snaps.

"They're packing up already."

"Good," Mom says just as Callie and Dr. Casey walk out the front door. Mom forgets the violation of our rights and goes to hug Callie. "How'd it go, sweetie?" she asks anxiously.

"I won't lie, it could've gone better," Dr. Casey says. "I gave her my number and told her that when she felt like talking, to make an appointment."

Mom nods. "Alright. Fine. Let's go inside," she tells Callie. Before she can say a word, Mom drapes an arm around her shoulder and leads her into the house.

Oh, there is nothing more awkward than standing out in the snow with a bunch of crazy scientists who think your foster sister's an alien.

I follow Mom and Callie inside, but Dad lingers to talk to the scientists.

Callie sits on the couch, and Mom's beside her. "Callie, what did they say to you?" she asks quietly.

"My English is im...peccable?" she says, like she's uncertain of the word.

"Impeccable? You mean, like, faultless?" I repeat. "That's what they had to say?"

"Mark..." Mom says warningly.

"They said other stuff too," Callie says. "Private stuff. National security."

I'm so sick of her secrets. Of this "private" bull crap. I want to shake her, demand that she stop hiding stuff from us. It's the words "national security" that stop me.

It might private because it's dangerous. Isn't she always going on and on about she doesn't want to talk about her past because she wants to protect us?

"You don't have to tell us, Callie, if you don't want to," Mom says.

Callie shakes her head and stands up. "I'm going to my room," she mumbles.

"That's fine," Mom says too heartily. Callie looks at her strangely then goes upstairs. As soon as we hear her bedroom door close, Mom drops her head into her hands. "What have I done?" she moans.

"It's okay, Mom," I say reassuringly.

She shakes her head. "No, it's not," she whispers. "That poor girl's clearly been put through trauma; I think I made things worse."

"I don't think you did, Mom," I say.

She looks at me. "Mark? Where's Leo?"

"Outside, talking to the scientists," I say.

"About what?"

I shrug. "I dunno."

Mom stands up. "I'm gonna go join him."

"Okay. I'll be upstairs if you need me."

Mom points a finger at me. "Don't bother Callie."

"Don't worry; I won't."

In fact, bothering Callie is my exact intention. I have a feeling in my gut that's leading me to Callie's room. Though her door's wide open, I still knock.

She motions for me to come over. "Shut the door, though," she says.

I comply, wondering what in the world she wants. She's kneeling on the floor by her bed. I know exactly what's there. By the bed, there's a loose floorboard that I used to hide things under from my parents when I was little. I had completely forgotten about it, but apparently Callie's discovered it.

Sure enough, when I kneel next to her, she lifts up the floorboard. Underneath is her clock necklace and her blue notebook.

"Why'd you hide this?" I ask.

"I didn't want it. They are ties to my past."

"So why not throw them out?" I ask.

"I cannot let go."

She reaches in and hands me the notebook. "Open it," she says.

I do.

The page is full of symbols. Every other line, though, is the English counterpart. At the top of the page is this:

"What's this?" I ask. Suddenly, I remember Dad talking about it, right before Callie found out about the ETL: It's not a diary. It's more of a...grammar book, written in a different language.

Callie bites her lip, sighs. "I need to tell you this, so at least one human's prepared for the threat." 

"I don't...what are you talking about?"

She points to the top of the page. "Azeran is my... I didn't speak English originally."

Obviously. "So...it's your native language? What kind of language is that?"

"It's...it's not human. I'm not human." Her eyes well up with tears. "You cannot tell anyone! I do not know who to trust, who will help me...I don't know if they work for Simon!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You've mentioned him before. You told me, when I first found you..."

"Simon kamm da," she whispers. "Earth maigst saze kein. Simon is coming. Earth is not safe. That is what I said. I tried to warn you."

"No offense, but giving us a warning in a different language isn't helpful, Callie. Then pretending like it didn't exist-"

"I was hiding from him. I don't know who to trust, Mark. The ETL might sell me out to him."

"Who is Simon, Callie?"

Now she pulls out the necklace. "On Azera, there's a bunch of people called Keepers. They have powers, like this. I'm a Time Keeper. Simon is a, uh...he can control minds."

"Hypnosis?" I ask.

She shrugs. "Sure. He used it for bad things. He wanted a dimension. It's called Tura, and I have two friends from there. He had to get out of the Training Base-where the Keepers train-and he killed his Guardian with hyp-hypno-"

"Hypnosis," I say. "So you're saying this guy broke out of school, killed his parent-"

"Guardian," she corrects. "Bayadonna. They help with Keeper training. They raise their Keepers in the Training Base, too."

"What's Bayadonna?"

"Baya was his Guardian. My Guardian's...lover. He found her dead. We thought she killed herself."

"But Simon made her do it."

She nods, then proceeds to tell me, in her limited English, that he recruited an army controlled by hypnosis, including many humans-the ETL had asked her about them-and he had started a war, where the spoil of war was Callie. She was a key to Tura, keeping a machine-"a portal, I guess"- locked from Simon, but she had just found that out. She got here through the portal, because a rift in time was in our backyard, where I had found her. She started crying as she informed me that Simon was going to get his prize anyhow, because she had just found out through "flashbacks" that her father had given her over.

"He chose a war to protect me," she sobs. "And now he's given me to the enemy. And Simon's coming to collect me, Mark. We only have a couple months before he's here."

I don't want to believe her. But my gut says she's telling the truth. "So this dude's coming?"

She nods.

"How?" I ask.

"Rocket ship? I don't know."

I pause. There's something missing, something I can't place. "Who's James?"

"My Guardian," she says quietly. "He died, too. Because of Simon."

"Oh." Something else strikes me. "You say you're alien, but yet you guys have human names."

"I can't explain that," Callie says with a small smile. "Some people-like Baya or Zadra or Masan, he's another Keeper- have Azeran names. I never understood it why most have human names. It's bizarre to me."

She clutches my hand. "Do not tell anyone," she begs. "I want you to know because I trust you. I want to forget that I am an alien, but I need someone here to remind me who I am. Because I am the only one who knows how to stop Simon."