The Fallen Star. Tracey Hecht

the stars! Look at those fingers! That scowl! That drool!” Bismark continued. “I want to look away, but I cannot!”

      “Be quiet, Bismark,” Dawn scolded. “She’s an aye-aye, the rarest type of lemur in the valley. I’ve heard them described, but I’ve never actually seen one before.”

      “Do not be ridiculo, my love! Everyone knows that lemurs are primates of soft fuzz and sweet fur!” the sugar glider cried. “This one looks like she was born in a prickle bush!”

      “Enough, Bismark,” Dawn said. She turned to the aye-aye. “Forgive us,” she began. “We’ve come to see if anyone was hurt by the star. I am Dawn, and this is Bismark and Tobin. We are the Nocturnal Brigade.”

      “What is your name?” Tobin offered shyly.

      The aye-aye did not answer. Instead, she began to climb the meteorite. When she reached its top, she turned to the trio, staring with her large eyes. Then she used her elongated fourth finger to tap against the stone.

       Tap tap tap.

      “Mon dieu, that miserable muchacha’s finger is as long as your tongue, amigo!” Bismark whispered, poking the pangolin’s flanks. The glider’s gaze moved to the sharp tips of the aye-aye’s grimy nails, and he shuddered.

      “Hey! Wait just a momento,” he cried. “I think I’m on to something! Listen up, Madame Monstruoso. Was it you who dug these holes in the soil? Quick, someone check those fingers for dirt!”

      “Oh goodness, Bismark! Give her a chance to speak,” Tobin whispered to his friend.

      But despite his good intentions, the pangolin felt a surge of dread as the aye-aye turned her harsh gaze on him. Perched upon the stone, she looked like some kind of hairy vulture at roost. Finally, she opened her mouth and wheezed a shallow cough.

      “A stone, a star-stone, fallen from the sky! It has come, but it did not come alone,” she said. Her raspy voice echoed faintly off the smooth meteorite. “Aye-Aye Iris has seen them. The mounds have been made. The poison has been set. The creatures are among us. The invasion has begun!”

      “Oh goodness! Poison? Creatures? Invasion!?” Tobin cried.

      “Mon dieu!” Bismark exclaimed. “Invaders? In the valley?”

      The fur on Dawn’s neck stood on end, but her voice remained steady and calm. “What kind of creatures did you see?” she asked the hunched animal above her.

      The aye-aye sputtered. Her shoulders heaved with each raspy breath. She wheezed and clutched her sides. But she said nothing in reply. She just continued to stare down at the Brigade. Dawn noticed that in all this time, the lemur had not blinked even once. Was something wrong with her? Was she ill? Or was she simply rattled by the fallen star?

      “What evidence do you have of an invasion? Of poison?” the fox pressed, meeting the aye-aye’s spellbinding stare with a steady look of her own.

      But the aye-aye just clicked her tongue and licked her lips, as if detecting the scent of something ripe in the air. “They have landed,” she repeated simply. “They have come. And they will destroy us all.”

      “For the love of all things gracious and good!” Bismark said, taking a few steps away from the aye-aye. “Who are these invaders? What do they want?”

      The aye-aye opened her mouth to speak but then stopped. Her pointy ears twitched in their beds of stringy white fur.

      “This is all starting to sound a little loco,” Bismark continued. “I think that hair of yours might not be the only thing in need of untangling, comprende?”

      The aye-aye hissed. Her face morphed into a grimace. “Aye-Aye Iris knows! Aye-Aye Iris knows!” She rapped her finger against the meteorite.

      “Aye-Aye Iris,” Dawn’s voice softened to calm the distraught lemur. “Please, tell us: who are these invaders? Where are they?” Dawn’s gaze swept the area, searching for intruders.

      “Yes! Where are they?” echoed the sugar glider. Bismark lifted his arms and took in the surroundings with a flourish of his flaps. “Regardez, there is no one here but us. We are solo. Inoccupato. Alone!” The glider planted his hands on his hips and cleared his throat, as if he were going to continue.

      The aye-aye’s stare hardened, but she remained silent.

      Dawn took two small steps toward her. “Iris, what do the invaders look like? What poison have they set?”

      “Only Aye-Aye Iris knows!” screeched the lemur. “Aye-Aye Iris knows the secret!” She doubled over and wheezed some more.

      “What secret?” Dawn prodded.

      “Follow Aye-Aye Iris,” the lemur said. She took a step toward the edge of the meteorite and beckoned the Brigade with her finger.

      The glider recoiled. Stumbling backward, he gathered his friends toward him with his flaps. “Mon dieu, she’s as crazy as she looks! Muy loco, totally mad! Who would believe such outrageous talk? She makes no sense!” he cried.

      Iris’s bat-like ears twitched at the sound of Bismark’s mocking tone, and she let out a garbled grunt. “You don’t believe Aye-Aye Iris, hmm?” She pointed her finger at the sugar glider. “Very well then, very well!”

      In a movement of surprising grace, the aye-aye slid from the stone. Then, with her posture slumped, she started trekking across the crater. Her spindly limbs moved like the legs of an enormous spider as she propelled herself away from the Brigade and into the thick dust.

      “Wait.” Tobin glanced nervously at the strange lemur moving farther and farther away. “Shouldn’t we stop her?” He turned to Dawn and Bismark. “Don’t you think we should find out the secret? Just in case?”

      “No! Don’t be silly, amigo,” said the glider. “She is crazy, bonkers, insane! But I do suggest we vamanos before Lady Loco decides to return and do something to us with those freaky fingers of hers.”

      And then, just as she began to recede from view, one of the lemur’s long, lanky fingers emerged from the haze. She pointed it at the Brigade.

      “Mark these words, sugar glider! Fox! Pangolin!” Her voice carried through the gloom. “You shall know when you see the glow. Beware the glow!” She paused dramatically. “But also know this,” she continued. “Once you see it, it will be too late.” Iris shook her head. Then she let out a cackle that echoed through the darkness.

      The Brigade squinted into the distance after the aye-aye, but they soon lost sight of her altogether. The air hung as heavy and thick as the eerie silence that remained.

      “Uh, wait! Muchacha! Perhaps I was a bit rash, a bit hasty. You know, distracted by those fearsome…I mean, fancy fingers of yours!” Bismark called after her.

      But there was no response.

      The aye-aye had disappeared.

      If there was a secret to learn, the aye-aye had taken it with her.

       Chapter Six

       THE OMINOUS AYE-AYE

      “No, my amigos, it is just as I suspected—there is zippo! Zero! Zilch!” Bismark shouted. Standing on tiptoe on top of Tobin’s pointy snout, the sugar glider peered inside the fallen star’s crack. “But pee-yew! Is the star stone still burning, or did that aye-aye, Iris, leave behind her stench?” He flapped himself away from the rotten fumes rising from the meteorite and landed back on the ground with a huff.

      “Oh goodness, are you sure there’s