After several days of being awakened in the night, gazing over the field, and seeing the lights, Bertha knew they'd come back again. She prayed for her daughter, Raylynn's return.  As a child, Bertha disappeared for two days, taken by the "Strangers." The entire town was out searching for her when she mysteriously reappeared in the backyard, telling everyone she had been on a spaceship. The whole town chuckled at her six-year-old imagination, but they were relieved the lost girl had returned. 

It wasn't until Bertha and Russell were not able to conceive that she discovered her ovaries had been surgically removed. Flashbacks of the experiments. Sometimes, late at night, she would catch glimpses of that time when she was on the verge of falling asleep.

The dreams were of the moment on the brink of sleep, when you feel like you are falling and jerk awake. These dreams that flashed before Bertha were memories the aliens had buried deep in her mind. While she was in that mid-level sleep state, bits and pieces came back with clarity.

If she had calculated correctly, Raylynn would have been home sometime today with only a faint recollection of what had happened to her. Bertha hoped the Strangers, as she called them, were more advanced now and didn't need to do the same experiments they had done on her. She kept busy by making Raylynn's favorite supper, meatloaf. Russell asked Bertha what she was doing, to which Bertha told him she sensed their daughter would be home tonight and wanted to welcome her with her favorite meal. Russell shook his head. 

"I'm going out with the search team again. I can't sit here and wait," Russell closed the door behind him. The father knew his wife's story about the kidnapping and her trip on the flying saucer. He lived in Vesper Springs at the time and, at eight, had a stronger recollection of his wife's disappearance from the town's perspective, better than his wife. She was the talk of the town, and no one thought about taking the little girl to a hospital. She was clean and outwardly seemed healthy. No one saw the nearly invisible scars on her body where her ovaries had been surgically removed. 

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Atwell, all the tests show you have no ovaries. They appear to have been surgically removed."  Bertha's mind went numb for a few seconds while she flashed to the experimental surgery in her mind, remembering the Strangers standing around her. At the time she felt nothing but pressure and the fear of the unknown. 

Bertha and Russell opted for invitro with a donor egg from her sister and his sperm. Raylynn was born nine months later. The husband and wife were among the lucky ones, conceiving on the first try.

Bertha had known for several weeks the Strangers were back. Late-night calls to awaken, she thought they were coming for her, so she said nothing to her husband. Bertha had no idea they would come for her daughter. She wondered why the Strangers chose her in the first place for their experiments. Was it because she was complacent? 

The desperate mother believed that her daughter would be home soon. She cracked an egg into the hamburger along with spices, adding a little rice. She mixed the meat with her hands, shaping it in the bread pan, covered everything, and put it in the refrigerator. The television repeated the hourly news, showing people with sticks beating bushes and walking through the soft areas of Vesper Springs, fearing Raylynn had fallen into quicksand. 

Bertha knew better as she stood looking out the window, patiently waiting for the bright light to bring her daughter safely home. 

It was a quick flash. She sensed it more than she saw it. Raylynn stood in the backyard as if nothing had happened. The little girl had her head tilted toward the sky, saying goodbye. Bertha raced out of the house, grabbing her daughter. 

"Hi, Mommy, why are you crying?" 

"I'm so happy to see you." Bertha quickly escorted her daughter inside and fed her some milk and cookies while she called the Sheriff's office to call off the search. Raylynn had returned unharmed. 

When the Sheriff reached their home, he questioned Raylynn, who had no recollection of anything happening or that she had been gone for two days. Russell pulled his daughter close, burying his head in her back while his daughter answered questions that had no clear answers. She told the Sheriff she had been on a spaceship. The Sheriff looked at Bertha. It was not lost on him that Raylynn's mother told the same tale when she was a girl of that age.

"I think we should take her to the hospital to get checked out," Russell said quietly. Bertha agreed that it was the prudent course of action, and they left for the hospital after the Sheriff finished his report.

A reporter stood outside their door, asking questions, and the Sheriff thanked him for his concern.

"The girl was lost in the woods and has come home on her own. She is going to the hospital as a precautionary measure. Please, let this family be." The Sheriff escorted the Atwells to the hospital. Raylynn's ordeal was well known locally, so they admitted the child into the hospital for a wellness check at her mother's insistence. 

When the doctor entered the room, he pulled up a chair. Raylynn had fallen asleep as she was exhausted. 

"Everything checks out. Raylynn looks good and healthy. What happened to her has not affected her too badly. Watch her closely for any unusual changes in behavior. We'll get her released from the hospital, and you can take her home with you tonight. It's been a couple of long days for you."

"What about her ovaries?" Bertha asked.

"Excuse me?" The doctor looked at the mother strangely.

"Did you check to make sure she has her ovaries?" The doctor thought this was an odd request and stared at Bertha perplexed. 

"No, I'm sorry. We checked Raylynn for cuts, bruises, and her mental well-being."

"Doctor," Russell interjected. "My wife was taken when she was Raylynn's age. It was later realized that they, we call them the Strangers, had removed her ovaries." 

"Strangers?" The doctor looked at Russell and Bertha as if they were not right in the head. Bertha told the doctor to process the paperwork and let them take their daughter home. 

"He thinks we're crazy," Bertha told her husband as he carried the sleeping child to the car. 

"She will be fine. She is safe and will soon be home. That's all that matters," Russell said reassuringly.  

Raylynn slept all the way home, moaning when Russell took her out of the car seat and carried her upstairs to her bed. Bertha put her in a nightgown, checking her over carefully, not seeing any surgical scars on her daughter. The frightened mother unrolled a sleeping bag on the floor in Raylynn's bedroom. She didn't want the Strangers to come back for her daughter. If they did, Bertha would be waiting for them. 

At three a.m., Bertha heard the Strangers calling, but they called her was for her, and not Raylynn. Helpless to resist, she moved toward the voice because she wouldn't let them take her daughter, relieved that the Strangers would take her instead. Slowly, Bertha went down the stairs, closing the screen door quietly behind her. Walking into the field behind the house, she waited for the bright light.

"Bertha!" Russell came out of the house, calling for her, trying to wake her from her sleepwalking state. The bright light flashed, and Bertha was no longer there.

Russell fell back on his bottom. Still not believing what he had seen. Something told him all would be well. Do not panic, the Strangers wouldn't harm Bertha. 

What did it mean? He wondered what he would say to the Sheriff. That his wife was pulled into a bright light and disappeared? Russell ran back to the house to be with Raylynn. He could hear the Strangers telling him they were coming back, not to worry, and that he should care for his daughter. So, that is what he did. Russell lay on the sleeping bag in Raylynn's room, praying that his wife would return soon. Raylynn was gone for two days, so all he had to do was wait for two days. He wouldn't call the Sheriff again. The town was already convinced the family was mad.

The mother and then the daughter claimed they had been kidnapped by a spacecraft. No doubt the mother poisoned the daughter with her fairy tale stories, and the young girl was delusional. He could see the Sheriff telling him that. Raylynn sat up in bed. 

"What is it, honey? Do you need to drink water or go to the bathroom? I'm here." Russell watched her every move. 

"Daddy, why did Mommy go?" 

"What do you mean, sugar? How did Mommy go?"

"She was with me for one minute, and they called her. She went to the same place I did, and now she's gone far away." Russell grabbed his daughter and pulled her close. 

"Mommy will be back soon. I am here. I'll take care of you." 

"No, Daddy, Mommy is gone, really gone. She is nowhere. We can never see her again. The Strangers said so."

"The Strangers talk to you?" Russell felt a sharp pain in his heart. 

"Yes, they said no more, Mommy, and soon there will be no more me. They let me come back to say goodbye to you." Russell tried to put on a face that didn't show concern for his daughter. 

"Well, honey, that's not going to happen. Mommy will be back, I'm sure of it. She came back before, and she will be back again just like you did. I won't let them take you." Raylynn stretched and yawned, laying back down. She fell asleep in a few minutes. Russell could hear heavy breathing in and out, eventually watching Raylynn's eyes moving around in the REM sleep state.

Russell lay on the floor, his hand wrapped around his daughter's little wrist on the bed. He wasn't going to let go. Russell and Bertha slept little for the last two nights while their daughter was missing. Exhausted, he knew he couldn't go to sleep now. The Strangers took his wife; now they were coming for his daughter. 

He held tight to his little girl's hand, his eyelids grew heavy, and his head bobbed.

He must stay awake. Russell went to splash cold water on his face. When he returned, his little girl was gone.

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