would shatter that increasingly fragile self image. She couldn’t very well explain to her principal, and especially to Officer Williams, why she had given up and abandoned Mariella in the forest on the banks of a toxic canal.
“Get away from there,” she huffed as she treaded down the long slope towards the orange-brown water. Mariella solemnly observed the canal with her toes just inches away from it.
The canal didn’t look unusual, but it sure stank nearly as bad as the lagoon. Luckily, it didn’t run very deep. Mariella couldn’t drown unless she squatted down, but the canal went deep enough to conceal all kinds of predators, from gators, to the occasional massive python that had been imported from South America and released by naive pet owners into Florida’s ecosystem. Any one of those wouldn’t mind a little girl, or a grown woman, for a meal that would fill their reptilian bellies for a month.
Mrs. Mint got within arm’s reach of the girl, and planted her feet. She gasped for air as her heart worked on overdrive pumping blood through her dehydrated body. The teacher waited for Mariella to turn around and gratefully acknowledge her for coming all this way through the forest so she could save her life. The girl didn’t do a thing. She faced the lagoon, as someone contemplating suicide might stare into the abyss over the edge of a cliff.
“Mariella, please step away from there. Let’s get you back to the…”
Every inch of her body froze. The tan and brown scales lapped out of the water with a lethal grace; a python that thick would measure longer than a car. She had heard about them eating deer and boar-animals not much lighter than her. Any person it coiled its muscular body around wouldn’t have more than the slimmest odds of escape.
“Listen to me carefully. There’s a big snake in that water. Step away slowly.”
Mrs. Mint followed her own advice but the girl didn’t move. She couldn’t tell whether Mariella favored dying, or enjoyed playing the victim. The teacher didn’t much care at this point. If she approached the water to save the reluctant child, the snake might go for the larger meal instead. Too many students and future students needed her. Sacrificing her life for a girl who didn’t even care about her own safety would deprive all those young minds of learning. If she walked away and let nature take its course, she could claim that she hadn’t found Mariella until it was too late.
Knowing she’d rather not stomach the sight of this outcome, the teacher turned her back on Mariella. She climbed up the embankment of the canal. A broiling swoon quickly overcame her head. She stumbled to her knees on the sandy dirt. The chirping of the insects and birds seemed to die down. Bright spots flickered across her vision. She roasted under the heat, but it no longer came from the blazing sun. Something inside her mind burned. It melded into a molten ball of guilt and regret from what she had done.
Mariella was a vulnerable child with special needs. How could she judge her as harshly-more harshly if she was honest with herself-than the other kids? If the Buckley twins had been provoking a black widow instead of a banana spider, she would have physically stopped them. So why wouldn’t she help Mariella? The teacher searched within herself, but she couldn’t find an answer that she accepted. The girl’s brown, Latina skin and immigrant status came to mind, but Mrs. Mint couldn’t accept herself as being racist. Maybe it came from the sudden change in the girl after she lost her parents. Mrs. Mint had never seen a child shift into such a dramatically different personality and, instead of gradually returning to normal, actively embrace her antisocial identity. It wasn’t healthy and it wasn’t right.
Against her better judgment, but with little choice from the knife of guilt digging into her brain, Mrs. Mint turned around and gazed at Mariella. The girl remained on the edge of the canal. Apparently, the prospect of being left alone in the woods with a massive python didn’t bother her. Approaching the girl with that huge snake lurking in the water sure as hell bothered Mrs. Mint, though.
The python lashed its head out of the canal and looped around Mariella’s feet. The snake tripped her up. The girl got sucked waist deep into the canal with her arms flailing. Mrs. Mint yowled in terror, even as the girl couldn’t while the python’s tail lashed across the water in front of her.
Ignoring her cowardly better judgment in favor of her instincts, Mrs. Mint dashed towards the canal. The adrenalin of the moment couldn’t mask the wrenching pain of her overworked knees and ankles. They didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the devastation she would feel if this child died right in front of her because she had hesitated. She saw Mariella sinking deeper into the murky water. The teacher stretched out her hand. This time Mariella didn’t ignore her. She grasped her palm desperately. The girl stared at her teacher with brown eyes that spoke of the agony of balancing atop the sharp, steel gate between life and death. Mariella reached out, and hooked Mrs. Mint’s shirt. She pulled the teacher close and wrapped her arm around her back in a tight embrace. The girl hadn’t hugged her since she had lost her parents. Mrs. Mint hadn’t seen her hug anyone besides Officer Williams. Stooping down on one knee, the teacher wrapped her arm around the girl and hugged her back while at the same time lifting her out of the water.
“I’ve got you! Just hold on.”
Mariella’s distressed expression instantly shifted into a sneer. The little hand clasping the teacher’s palm bore down so hard that her knuckle bones snapped. She screamed, and dropped the girl. The hand that had been embracing her teacher grabbed her by the seat of her pants and hurled her over the girl’s head. Mrs. Mint nosedived into the water. The top of her head slammed into the mucky canal bed.
An eight-year-old girl couldn’t possess strength like that, the teacher thought as she trashed around underwater. Finally, her feet found the bottom. When she lifted her head and chest above the water’s surface and drew a breath, she found Mariella watching her with eyes that emitted a solid purple glow. The expression of a shy, frightened little girl long gone, she resembled a vengeful goddess. Mrs. Mint had miserably failed at protecting this astonishing creature. Now, no one would protect her.
Mrs. Mint stepped back. Her legs were snared in the coil of the python slithering around her. It squeezed until she fell to her knees. She found herself submerged up to her shoulders. Despite sitting in the clutches of a man- eating snake, the teacher felt that the real menace wafted towards her through the water with deceptively skimpy arms, and hair dripping with muck. Those purple eyes entranced her mind. She couldn’t move a muscle. For once, Mrs. Mint went speechless.
She’s only a little girl. This can’t be happening. The Lagoon Watcher is the killer. He kidnapped her.
But that’s not what he said. He said he came to help her. What the hell happened to her?
When Mariella seized the hair atop her teacher’s head, Mrs. Mint feared that she would soon find out. The grown woman throttled the little girl’s single arm with both hands. It didn’t help. Mariella plunged her teacher’s head into the canal. She couldn’t even kick with the snake around her calves. She punched the girl in the legs and stomach. Mariella didn’t relent. Mrs. Mint couldn’t breathe. Soon, that became the least of her problems.
Her ears burned. Then her mouth. Then her eyes. She felt them invading her body through every opening. They were smaller than grains of sand. She probably wouldn’t have noticed them if they didn’t stab her with blistering pain on every surface they touched. It felt as if she had a blowtorch blazing down her throat. The fluid encasing her skull boiled. She realized that the invaders had caught a ride on her arteries as she felt flashes of stinging lightening shoot through her heart, and down into her arms and legs. The lower half of her body numbed as its suffering dulled in comparison to the brutal shredding of muscle and tendons around her neck and collarbone.
Somehow in her frantic struggle, Mrs. Mint popped her head above water. She opened her mouth to draw a breath. The air didn’t seep through her lips. She felt her saliva drip down her throat and out her open windpipe. As her severed head bobbed in the water, her darkening vision caught a glimpse of purple eyes hovering over her like a vulture awaiting the demise of its prey.
It didn’t have to be this way, if only I would have looked out for the child, Mrs. Mint thought. I deserve this.
No. That’s not a child. No human child could do this. She must be-
The teacher’s thoughts faded away, but her brain would prove useful.
Chapter 35
The shadows in the Enchanted Forest loomed long and large as the sun descended toward its date with nightfall. When the darkness smothers the trees, Moni knew that would signal her chances of finding Mariella in the dense wilderness as worse than remote.
