She didn't know what was taking him so long. His worksite was only a few blocks away, and yet it had been nearly forty minutes. There was no one else to call. Her painful revelations of the past few months had taught her she had no friends in the city—even people like Ellen and Thorne had never been close, not truly—and it had never crossed her mind to call the authorities. 

What would she tell them? That she'd gone crazy?

Kate's first instinct had been to call Eli, the man she'd rejected, the person whose friendship she feared, the only real friend she had in the city. But who was she fooling? Did she have friends anywhere else? She hadn't even known what to say to him when she'd called. Their entire conversation had consisted of a surprisingly calm, "I need your help, please come over." He said he would come straight away.

That had been forty minutes ago. Since then, she'd gone from tremulous pacing of the hallway, to hiding in the bedroom closet, to desperately and fearfully stalking the front foyer.

When she saw his truck pull through the security gate into the driveway, she walked out to meet him, confident she calmly could explain the situation. Instead, before he'd even exited his truck fully, she stood, helplessly shifting from leg to leg, blubbering, "I fell and hit my head."

Again, what else could she say? It was true. She had fallen and hit her head after the shock of seeing a man fly over her home, and during the endless minutes she'd waited, it had occurred to her that it smarted a little. So, what else could she say? 'Please drive me to the nearest loony bin?' She'd already used that line.

Before she'd even finished that scattered thought, he was standing in front of her, his hands gently on her head, touching and probing front, side, and back. He questioned her several times before she understood what he was saying.

"Did you lose consciousness at any point?" he said as he tenderly searched her scalp.

"No," she blubbered again.

"Have you felt nauseous? Or have you vomited since your injury?"

"No," was the same pathetic response.

Dizziness, lightheadedness, blurred vision, trouble speaking or holding a thought? he asked in rapid succession.

No, no, and no were her answers. She was just starting to get her sobbing under control as she replied to the last question. Everything had sounded confused and muffled until then.

"I should call 911," were his gentle words.

"Please don't'," she implored. His voice was beginning to sound normal. "I don't think I'm hurt bad. I'm just afraid."

"Did someone hurt you?" he asked. His words were quiet but fearful.

"No," was her reply. "Just ... please don't go."

She wasn't sure how much he believed her denials, but he took her inside and began to examine her further. He made several more fruitless attempts to convince her to seek medical help. By that time, she'd managed to regain her wits somewhat and, somehow, convinced him she'd not been assaulted.

It was clear from the look in his eyes that he knew something was afoot, something she was not telling him, but she didn't know what to say or whether she had the strength to tell him what actually had occurred. Finally, he asked her whether she'd eaten. Her lightly picked-over plate sat on the counter as mute testimony.

"Not much, but I'm fine," she confessed.

"And have you been sleeping?"

She hesitated, and he took her hand and led her toward the bedroom. When she balked, he scarcely missed a beat before directing her toward the couch in the main room. She didn't resist.

"Why haven't you been taking care of yourself?" he asked as they sat.

"I've been busy." The excuse sounded lame even to her ears.

The slightest of pauses followed.

"What happened?" he said evenly. It didn't sound like a question.

"There's a straightjacket in the house, somewhere." She somehow managed to bark a laugh through the tears. And then, slowly, she began to unwind events of the day, beginning with her trip to the stables and her ride. It was the running start she needed. By the time she made it to the fantastical part of her story, her voice had steadied and only hitched here and there as she began the part about the 'Flying Guy,' as she'd already come to think of him. The whole thing took about ten minutes, and his face did not alter or shade once.

"Why didn't you call the emergency operator?" was his first question after she'd finished speaking.

"What would I tell them?"

"The guy might be hurt somewhere."

"Eli, he didn't fall off the cliff. He was flying."

It wasn't clear whether his question had been a first hint of doubt or he'd merely misunderstood her. Either would have been a reasonable reaction she admitted to herself.

"Okay, tell me more," he said in the same calm and patient voice.

Over the next twenty minutes, she retold her story with him occasionally stopping her to ask a question or to seek clarification. His patience was a balm, and by the end of that time, she was, absent the random sniffle, more or less her normal self.

"The way I see it," he said, "there's only one of two things possible here. Either it was a guy doing something guys aren't supposed to be able to do ... at least unaided ... or it was something that is supposed to fly that just looked like a man."

"Eli, it was a man. I saw him as clearly as I'm seeing you right now."

"Okay, let's start with that. Come show me exactly where you first saw him."

The idea of returning to the deck filled her with such a dread that she chose to direct her friend from the relative safety of the sunroom doors, from where she also fielded his questions. For about fifteen minutes, he moved about the rear of her home, asking questions, taking pictures with his phone, and consulting what appeared to be a variety of apps.

"What sort of sound did he make?" he asked when he rejoined her at the door.

"Nothing. Not a sound."

"And what was his body posture?"

"His ...?"

"Was he upright, horizontal, in the fetal ...?"

"Oh, um, he wasn't upright. He was sort of leaning forward, but just a little, and his legs just seemed to dangle beneath him ... no, they sort of trailed slightly. One was bent a little at the knee and a few inches ahead of the other. He looked ... relaxed."

"And his arms?"

"He wasn't using them at all. They weren't at his side. They were just sort of," she said, striking a pose with her own arms, "... naturally hanging, more to the front. Like I said, he just seemed perfectly relaxed."

"And he didn't make any noise? Did he speak, wink, smile?"

"He glanced at me. I mean, he had to have seen me. But he didn't say a word. He was totally silent. If I hadn't been looking in that direction, I would have missed him completely."

As they spoke, they began moving back toward the living room. Eli stopped as they reached the kitchen counter.

"I'm gonna make some calculations. What you should do is sit down and write out everything you've told me and everything else you remember. It isn't perfect, but sometimes writing things out helps jog loose something you've overlooked. And writing it out will help you remember things later ... unless you'd rather forget?" His last words were sympathetic.

"No, I don't."

There was already a stack of printer paper on the counter that she'd been using to take notes on her various projects, so she took a stool and began penning everything she could remember, going back from time to time to amend, correct, or expand on something. By the end of ninety minutes, she had about twenty handwritten pages in her fine script. Eli was still working, bits of heavily noted and crumbled paper around him on the wide counter. She wasn't hungry, but she knew she should eat and so should he, so she began to prepare something. By the time she finished at the stove, he'd completed his task.

"Okay, I can't come up with much," he said, taking the offered plate without a word, "but here's what I figure. Your friend was moving at about twenty to twenty-five miles an hour when you saw him. That's based on how long it took him to travel from where you first saw him to the point where you lost sight of him. Also, that's why he remained so silent. If you've ever ridden a motorcycle, you'll know wind noise generally doesn't become noticeable until you reach thirty-five or forty miles an hour. That pretty much rules out his wearing some sort of wingsuit. Someone using one of those might be able to fly at that angle, but they wouldn't be able to stay aloft at such a low speed. And there would have been at least some noise." He looked over and hesitated. "How's your eyesight?"

"Twenty-twenty in both eyes." She almost wanted to apologize.

"That speed, angle of movement, and body posture describes a parachutist jumping a parafoil rig perfectly. But it was a clear day, the sun wasn't in your eyes, and such equipment casts a huge profile. Even if his chute was made of some transparent material, you still would've seen it and the cables suspending him."

"So, what was it?"

"Absent some new technology? The power needed to keep a human aloft without some huge airfoil would require an engine that is prohibitively bulky ... and loud. It doesn't appear he was using any type of glider, parachute, or wingsuit. And he wasn't using a mechanical lift of any sort I've ever heard of. Look ... I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but either he was flying, comic-book superhero-type flying, or it wasn't a man at all."

She leaned her chin on the heel of her hand and thought. "What else might it have been?"

"Ugh ... I don't know. Most everything makes some sort of noise. A stray balloon? Some marketing gizmo that went off course? There are a couple of movie studios near here, aren't there? Some sort of drone? It could be something we've never heard of. There are more and more things in the air every day. So many, the FAA can't keep up with new regulations."

"No," she said slowly after a few more seconds contemplation. "It was a man, Eli. The only other option is I'm going crazy."

"That would be an easy way out, wouldn't it?"

For the first time since his arrival she honestly laughed. It was weak, but she felt the worst of the crisis was over. The two chatted and ate a little and even laughed a bit more.

"There is a certain logic about the path this guy took," Eli said after a while. "Where your house is located, just to the south side of this ridgeline," he said with a few hand gestures, "is near a slight saddle along the ridge. And the point where you lost sight of him is a lot farther down the hillside than it looks. If, um ... if I was flying and had to go that way, and I didn't want to be observed at a distance, that's the path I'd take, hugging the nap-of-the-earth ... especially since your house is the only one along that path for some ways."

"So, someone standing on my deck would be the only person likely to see the Flying Guy? ... lucky me."

"What do you remember of 1991?" he asked, seemingly from nowhere.

"You mean the terrorist attacks? I remember everyone being scared to death."

"The jury's out on what exactly happened that year. What do you remember?"

"Not much, just that it was all over the news. Wasn't it one of those Alqaeda, ISIS sort of groups?"

"I dunno," he said with a short laugh. "Uncle Sam had two or three stories for that one, but I think that's what they settled on." He took a short breath before continuing deliberately. "One of the urban legends of that day was that some of the attackers could fly, which doesn't say much, because all of them wore special suits. People who buy into that crap just assume they were wearing some sort of jet-packs ...." His sheepish smile signaled to her that this pause was more than just Eli sorting his thoughts.

"And ...?"

"I met a guy," he said reluctantly, "a few years back, an absolute flake, who swore up and down one of the attackers was flying around in street clothes."

She ignored the 'flake' reference—it was obvious Eli had been loath to broach the subject—but it otherwise made her feel a mustard seed better.

"Do you think it was the same guy?"

"I don't know? How old was the guy you saw?"

"Oh ... twenty-five, thirty, maybe," she said with a crinkled nose.

"Probably not, then. But I guess the likelihood of two Flying Guys isn't much more remote than one." He got up. "I'm going to powder my nose. You should start thinking about getting some rest."