Page 8 of The Alien I Fell in Love with on Walpurgis Night

“No, it’s just…people use that number sparingly because it’s auspicious.”

“You’re really going wild on the world-building. I’ll try to remember all of this. Seven sacred children.”

I close my eyes trying to unhear what she just said. My faith wavers. Unlike most, I have never believed the goddesses grant or take away from mortals for the words they use, but in this scenario, to hear her say ‘seven sacred children,’ makes me think she is either my destiny or it’s a warning to abandon this plan entirely and openly admit my guilt to the Alliance Force. Putting my fate in their devout hands. I open my eyes and make a request of Georgiana, “Please don’t say it like that.”

“Okay,” she says with a slight smile, not quite believing me and why would she? She believes this all to be a game.

I stare at her face for a moment. deciding. There’s something about her which makes me want to continue, despite already showing signs that she may not be the best candidate for this charade.

“Did your parents know about me? Did they approve of you secretly marrying a human?”

“They knew. They didn’t approve. And your parents never knew.”

“That’s an easy one. My parents died when I was young. Family members passed me around until I was an adult.”

“I’m sorry,” I begin, but she waves a hand at me to stop talking.

“It was a long time ago. I was lucky I had family who could help. It’s expensive to raise an unplanned child that’s not your own. They did the best they could.”

“That was a convenient answer for, ‘It could have been much better, but it also could have been much worse.’ Are you still in regular communication with any of them?”

“Not really. The occasional phone call.”

“So they would not have known about our marriage?”

“I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to tell them especially if I was on the other side of the galaxy with the love of my life,” she says, ending her sentence on an upbeat note.

Georgiana is of strong character; I make a mental note of it. “I’m sorry for your lack of support, but it’s good to know and fits our narrative.” I get out my IC and begin scrolling through my list of questions that I had prepared for courting. I haven’t looked at this list in years. But suddenly I want to know everything about Georgiana. But I think I feel this way only because of the pressure of us having to fool the Alliance Force and nothing more.

“What’s that?”

“It’s my personal communicator.” I lift it up for her to see if that’ll make any difference. “I’m going through my courting questions.”

“Courting questions? Are you sure you’re not a time traveler? Who calls it ‘courting anymore?’”

“I am an alien and on my planet, in my culture, yes we still call the practice courting and it’s quite formal.”

“You just randomly have that on your phone?”

“I like to be prepared.”

“Do you plan everything?”

“Yes,” I tell her, looking through my questions again. “As much as I can. Don’t you?”

“I try to but I’ve found that it doesn’t matter what I plan, there’ll always be unpredictable changes. Like this,” she says the last sentence quietly and a wave of guilt passes through me.

“You’ll have the money when we succeed,” I remind her.

“When do we have this interview with border control?” she asks, changing the subject. “Or are we just going to show up unannounced?”

“We are going to call them to us. My ship was destroyed. I need them to come and get us.”

“Okay. I’ll play along with this too,” she says, trying not to smile. “How was your ship destroyed?”

“That’s classified.”

“I’m your wife.”

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