didn’t understand what she had seen until she saw Darren’s warm corpse gushing blood all over her back seat.
Without thinking, Moni started the car and sped out of the parking lot. Her hand reached for her cell phone. She stopped herself. If she reported this, Mariella would end up caged inside a government lab for the rest of her life. The girl-if she truly was a girl — deserved better than that after saving her.
I never got her tested for the bacteria. I shielded her from answering any questions. What kind of child have I been raising all this time?
Moni abruptly pulled the car over onto a dark shoulder of the road. She got out and walked around to Mariella’s door. She opened it. The girl got out obediently. She immediately snuggled up against Moni as if she had just witnessed a brutal killing rather than committed it.
No, Mariella didn’t kill Darren, Moni thought. She had saved both of their lives.
“You shouldn’t have to sit back there in that icky mess, baby,” Moni said. “Come up front with me.”
Moni got back behind the wheel with Mariella at her side. When she reached for the ignition, her hand trembled. She didn’t know where she should drive. All this time, she thought she had found a daughter. This poor innocent creature couldn’t defend herself, she had assumed. She needed her. Yet, Mariella more than defended herself against Darren. Someone capable of ripping a throat out couldn’t be a real child or a real daughter.
Tears streamed down Moni’s face. She bottled them up behind her hand, which screened out her view of the beautiful thing that resembled a child sitting beside her.
Nina told me something was wrong with her. I should have listened. Of course she’s not human. No human child would ever love a mess like me.
Tiny fingers gently, yet firmly removed Moni’s hand from her eyes. Mariella took Moni’s hands in both of hers as if she were channeling a dual electrical current through them. Moni’s head warped like the deck of the sinking Titanic. Through the thunder ringing inside her skull she understood a message. Mariella loved her more than any human child could. And she desperately needed her help.
Moni drew her hands away from the girl. The buzzing in her head faded into the background as if she had gone outside the arena during a hip hop show. The thoughts she just had weren’t hers, Moni realized. Mariella had planted them inside her head, but they sounded so much like her own thoughts that she couldn’t tell the difference. Even without talking, Mariella spoke louder than anyone.
She still felt the love radiating into her brain from Mariella. In her heart, she knew she loved the girl too. Whether human or not, the Mariella that had emerged from the mangroves was the only Mariella she knew. Still, she felt the sting of betrayal. The girl had impersonated Moni’s thoughts. How many times had Mariella “suggested” that she do something out of her character? She wondered whether it was her or the girl that had made the decisions that left Nina in the hospital and both Tanya Roberts and Clyde Harrison missing their heads. Mariella had survived the attacks and so did she, but why? Had she been protecting Mariella from the Lagoon Watcher and his minors like she thought, or did the girl’s drawings really represent death warrants written out in marker and crayon? She had sketched a boater tossed overboard like Kane, a cruel gator like the one who bit Robbie Cooper, a beheaded dog like what happened in the twins’ backyard and a burning man that resembled the teenager in the marina fire. Moni had ignored it all.
When she looked at that sweet face, Moni saw the same girl who had smiled with glee as she rode a horse for the first time. Her adorable expression completely masked what lay beneath. It didn’t work anymore. Moni knew it lurked inside the girl. She couldn’t drive on and pretend that part of Mariella didn’t just tear apart her ex- boyfriend’s throat. Moni didn’t feel threatened in the least by her, but she couldn’t say that she didn’t feel worried for other people. By the way she had killed so casually, she had a feeling that Darren hadn’t been her first victim.
“What are you, Mariella? Are you hurting people?”
The girl bowed her head for a few seconds. Instead of contemplating how she would answer, it appeared that she was deciding whether she should answer at all. Finally, Mariella clasped the top of Moni’s palm.
Moni’s head reverberated as if it were a giant tuning fork. She could feel every wavelength of Mariella’s thoughts sloshing against her brain and soaking in between its spongy crevices. Her speech didn’t sound like another voice inside her head. Moni recognized it as her own voice. It felt like a recollection of a story she had learned long ago being brought back into focus.
There was a distant planet in a place that Moni’s people call Orion when they gaze at the sky. Mariella’s people lived in the waters there, but they didn’t resemble the waters of earth at all. These acidic waters nourished life on their home world. Tragically, much of that life got destroyed following a massive meteor strike. Aware that their planet faced a calamity that would wipe them out, Mariella’s people created seeds that could sprout into their species if they found a new home with suitable conditions. They were carried by miniature “ambassadors” of their planet that were blasted in every direction and scattered among the stars.
A cluster of them heard the communication signals from earth and migrated here. They caught a ride down from orbit on a man-made rocket craft and then started sampling their surroundings. The ambassadors found that they could transform the lagoon into a habitable environment for their species, but it would take painstaking work and some “unfortunate concessions” on the part of the local life forms. The ambassadors didn’t have much choice. None of them have received a signal from a successful colony. Earth represented the only hope of bringing their species back from extinction.
“So you do really need my help,” Moni said. “But why did you kill so many people? Why take possession of animals… and a little girl?”
As Moni stared at Mariella, a heavy blink crossed the child’s eyes as if the “ambassador” inside felt guilty for stealing the girl’s body. Moni didn’t perceive that solely from her expression. When Mariella dialed into Moni’s head, Moni caught a faint signal of Mariella’s thoughts as well. They didn’t emerge in plain English but in feelings, concepts and unintelligible static. She knew right away that no human thought like that.
Mariella’s answer emerged within Moni’s thoughts. The ambassadors came to replicate their home planet in a small section of the earth. Their species can’t tolerate the conditions in the lagoon until it’s finished, so they employed native life for the construction by taking them as hosts and utilizing their “resources.” They accessed the girl’s body as a conduit for interacting with humans and for the superior capabilities of her more advanced brain. The ambassadors had guessed correctly that a child could get away with unusual behavior better than an adult. Of course, they would rather complete their mission without harming anyone. They felt badly for Mariella and her parents, but their “sacrifices” would bring about the rebirth of a majestic species.
Moni felt their empathy wash through her mind. They hadn’t been murders at all. This was about survival for the species that created Mariella, who she loved like a daughter. She had been protecting Mariella the whole time, not from mutants, but from real monsters like her father, Sneed and the Lagoon Watcher. It turns out that she has done a great job, she thought.
Yet, she couldn’t shake the nagging sourness in her stomach. She remembered the faces of those who died: Matt Kane, Randy and Robbie Cooper, the burning teenager and his friends, Tanya Roberts, Clyde Harrison, the firefighter, Pedro and Rosa Gomez-Mariella’s parents.
They conquered the girl’s mind so completely that she didn’t care that her parents died. The snake that busted through my screen was after Aaron, not her. She called the pelican that nearly killed Nina because she knew about the drawing. She faked her kidnapping with the mutant gator to avoid being nabbed by the DCF. Then she had Agent Tanya and Harrison beheaded. And Mrs. Mint… How many other people will die when they take over the lagoon?
They hate taking lives even more than they hate taking land. Although she understood their sentiment, those words were not her own. Mariella had put them there.
The extinct species wants only a sliver of Earth. When standing on the lagoon’s edge, it may seem like a lot, but from the grand vantage point of space, the Indian River Lagoon is hardly a scratch on the blue and white marble of this planet. In much the same way, the tragic loss of life hurts deeply for those who knew the sacrificed ones, but in the grand scheme of earth’s population, the expected casualties from this operation will be “statistically insignificant.” As long as people accept that the visiting species has a right to exist and grants it the space it requires in the lagoon, further bloodshed and “involuntary possessions” won’t be necessary.
“That’s not how we think,” Moni said aloud so she wouldn’t confuse Mariella’s voice with her own. “Every single life is precious and has a right to exist, even if it’s one in 6 billion. Why can’t you reach out and talk to us? Maybe our government will give you uninhabited land somewhere if you teach us a few of your, um… tricks.”
That would never work, Moni realized, possibly with a little assistance. The ambassadors can’t communicate
