Carmella was cozy in her bed and drifting off to sleep when she realized she hadn’t brushed her teeth. She hated to get out from under the covers on a chilly fall night but knew she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep if she didn’t brush. She walked into the bathroom of her drafty Victorian house and felt the cold floorboards underneath her feet. She knew exactly where the toothbrush and paste were, so she didn’t need to flick on the light. Besides, the glare would have taken her out of the drowsy, comfortable feeling that would allow her to go right back to sleep. As she squeezed the toothpaste onto the tip of her toothbrush, she noticed an unusual glow coming in the window.

Her bathroom window looked out on the main yard of Pine Bush Sports Cars, which was a storage lot for her father’s own cars as well as cars he was working on for customers. Despite her attempt to stay in a drowsy state, Carmella began to feel more awake. She looked out the window to try to find the source of the light and saw something that startled her. At the edge of her backyard, by her father’s garage, she spotted a person standing near one of the cars. As she became more alert, she saw that the person appeared to be encircled in a column of strange, green light.

Examining the scene more intently, she became convinced that the person was Yan. He seemed to be closely studying a 1972 Ontario Orange Shark convertible her father had taken in on a trade for a ’66 Corvette Sting Ray convertible that had a mint body but a cracked engine block.

Although he was some distance away, Carmella could see his face and noticed there was something unusual about his behavior. He focused on the ’72 Shark closely and walked slowly from the hood of the car to the taillights. At certain points, he stopped, and his head twitched. It reminded her of the way her grandmother cocked her head when she was trying to remember a recipe.

With each deliberate step he took, the green column of light followed him. Tracing the column upward, Carmella saw that it went straight up into a bank of clouds. Yan then turned in the yard to face a 1978 Silver Anniversary Edition Corvette that her father was tuning up for a customer in Albany. He stared intently at the two-toned body the same way he’d stared at the Ontario Orange Shark. But this time, he put a hand on the hood and closed his eyes as if in deep concentration.

Suddenly, Roddie began to bark, piercing the midnight silence. Carmella’s father had installed a hatch in the back door of their kitchen, so Roddie could go in and out when he needed to relieve himself. He must have gone out the door and onto the small back porch. Yan spun around and looked directly at the house. As soon as he titled his head up toward the bathroom window, his eyes met Carmella’s.

Yan, or whoever he was, acted like he’d been caught where he shouldn’t be. He looked straight up into the column of light and raised his arms. In what seemed like two seconds, a silent lightning flash filled the back yard and dazzled Carmella’s eyes.

When she focused again, Yan was gone. Carmella craned her head and peered straight up into the sky. The clouds had been dispersed, and in their place was a large, wedge-shaped object outlined with pulsating green, white, and violet lights. It appeared to be the same craft she had seen with Lori at WPIV. But this time, the strange craft began to shift slowly back and forth in a zigzag formation. The bizarre motions were unlike anything Carmella had ever seen in the flight path of an airplane or helicopter.

Gradually, as it continued its irregular zigzag motion, the center of the wedge pulsated with indigo light. It reminded her of her birthstone, the bright aquamarine blue gem. Then, in a graceful movement, the wedge broke apart into two smaller triangles before dividing twice more, until there were a total of eight radiating blue triangles. At first, the points of the eight triangles were faced inward like a pie that had been cut into eight pieces, then the pieces spun around so that their bases were joined together and their vertices were pointed outward. The formations reminded Carmella of a kaleidoscope she’d had as a child. She’d spent hours watching the colorful crystals make dazzling, mirrored displays as she slowly turned the end of the tube. With each new formation of the triangles in the sky, the individual wedges changed color—from blue to red and from lime green to violet. The displays were beautiful, and Carmella felt the movements had some kind of meaning—perhaps a form of communication like Morse code.

Suddenly, one small wedge detached from the cluster and glided to the left before stopping. Then, one by one, each of the remaining seven triangles morphed onto the top of the first triangle. Instead of changing shape with each added triangle, the wedge became larger and larger, until the original spaceship had been restored. The large ship rotated ninety degrees so that its vertex pointed north. Then, it streaked out of sight, leaving a faint tail of light reminiscent of a shooting star.

When she woke up the next morning, Carmella remembered the previous night’s incident vividly, but it was all so extraordinary. Somehow the experience had not frightened her at the time. She simply felt privileged to have observed something so incredible. Was it a dream?