Radiant (32 page)

He nodded. "I see."

"Times up," the guard said.

Martin sighed. "It was real nice seeing you, Mary. And thanks for bringing her, Carter."

Mary felt
frozen to her seat. She watched as Martin slowly stood and shuffled back towards the heavy door. Suddenly, she jumped to her feet. "I still have it!"

Martin stopped and looked back at her.

"The telescope," she said. "It never got taken back. I use it all the time to look at the moon and the other planets. It's…neat."

Martin said nothing. Then he smiled
and turned quickly to wipe his eyes, letting the guards usher him back through the heavy door.

***

Mary was waiting for Mom at the kitchen table when she walked in the door the next morning.

"
Hi, Sweetie. Did you have a good night's sleep?"

Mary crossed her arms.
"I want the truth."

Mom looked confused.
"What are you talking about?"

Mary reached behind her chair, picked up her telescope, and
set it on the table carefully. "Where did this come from?"

Mom sighed. "I don't remem
ber. I saw it in some store and—"

"Where did this
really
come from?" Mary interrupted. "Who
really
gave it to me?"

The color drained from Mom
's face.

"I
saw him at Huntsman yesterday," Mary continued.

"How did you find out?" Mom asked.

"It doesn't matter," Mary said, starting to tremble from anger. "Why'd you lie? Why'd you keep him from me?"

"
I was trying to protect you," Mom said.

"Protect
me
?" Mary snapped. "Or protect
yourself
?"

"
Both!" Mom's arms went around her stomach, like she had a terrible ache in there that she had carried for years. "He wasn't a good man. He hurt me, and I hated him. He gave up his rights to see you, but when he changed his mind later, I wouldn't let him. I didn't want you knowing how awful he was. But I…"

Mary narrowed her eyes. "But you what?"

Mom pressed her lips together as tears started falling down her face. "But I also wanted to hurt him back. I told him if he ever tried to see you, I'd call the police. I didn't hear from him for years. Then the telescope came. I was going to send it back, but then the bank robbery happened. A couple weeks later, the store he bought it from called saying that he hadn't finished paying for it. So I did."

Neither of them said anything for a while. Then Mary whispered,
"How could you be so selfish? I thought all these years he didn't want to find me."

Mom pressed her lips together again. Then, she
went into her bedroom, where she pulled up the mattress and took out something. She came back to the kitchen and set it on the table next to the scope.

It was a stack
of sealed letters from Martin addressed to Mary.

"
Because you saved my life," Mom said. "You were my baby. The one that I wanted and that I was told I couldn't have. You were my miracle. And maybe I thought if you got to know your father, you might save his life, too. I didn't want to share you with anyone. Especially him."

Mary took one of the letters and examined it. "Does Ba know?"

Mom shook her head.

"And is this why you never
wanted to go with us to the art store?" Mary asked. "Because you knew about Ben? You didn't want to meet him because of Anna?"

Mom settled into the chair across from her. "I was afraid. And ashamed. I felt like it was
my fault that his wife died, because I wouldn't let your father see you and he felt like he had to do what he did." She wiped her eyes. "Do you know why I became a nurse? Sure, I wanted to be able to make a better life for you. But I also wanted…forgiveness. Maybe if I helped enough strangers, I could be forgiven one day."

Mary took another envelope and looked at it. So many thoughts and emotio
ns were going through her at that point. She wanted to scream and cry and do nothing at the same time.

"Do you hate me now?" Mom asked.

Mary looked at her. She could see the years of pain and sorrow on her face, as if she had taken off a mask she had worn for years. It broke Mary's heart.

Normally, Mary was at a lost for words in situations like this. But she remembered the time when she
was little and Ba told her the story about not seeing her family again. This time, the words were simple and came easily. "No. I don't hate you. I can never hate you."

Mom looked down and cried
.

Mary stood and walked around the table to her, wrapping her arms around her tightly.
"I'll always be yours. You don't have to compete against anyone for me. No one else can ever be my mom."

Mom balled.
Mary stroked her hair.

"But I want you to do something for me," Mary said.

Mom wiped her eyes. "What is it?"

"I want
you to forgive him," Mary said, "for hurting you."

Mom wrinkled her brow.

Mary recalled a conversation she and Phos had on their first official date, back when she thought he was still Carter. "Someone once told me that if you don't forgive someone, you let them keep hurting you." Mary looked in her mother's eyes. "I don't want you to hurt anymore, Mom."

Mom stared at her for a long time. At last, she smiled and nodded. "All right. I forgive him."

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- 34 -

Found

When Mary came back to school, it was a nonevent. Her teachers and the principal welcomed her back, along with a few other kids who had heard about her ordeal. But other than that, it was business as usual.

Mary was fine with that. Things may have looked the same on the outside, but she knew
everything was different.
She
was different. She was allowed to use the elevator because she was still recovering, but she chose to take the stairs anyway. She never again wanted to take her ability to walk for granted.

She also saw people differently. Mary, who normally didn't talk to anyone, started saying hi to people she knew in the hall and
sitting in the lunchroom with Sienna and a few others. She even found the freshman whom she had paid to throw the holy water that one time. "You wanna eat with us?" Mary asked.

The freshman looked at her suspiciously. "Why?"

"Because you're always by yourself," Mary said. "And we have an extra seat."

The girl still looked a little skeptical and didn't accept the invitation for a couple days. On the third day, however, she asked if she could sit with them.

"Sure thing," Sienna said as she removed her bag from the empty chair. "I'm Sienna. What's your name?"

The girl sat down. "K
ristina," she answered. "My name is Kristina."

"Ple
ased to make your acquaintance," Phos said.

One day, wh
en Mary was in the computer lab typing up an essay, she checked her email and noticed she had about fifteen messages from Drew. The last one he sent was from a couple weeks ago.

Omg, where are you? If you don't answer me in 24 hrs, I'm calling the FBI.

- Drew

Mary wrinkled her brow. Agents never came knocking on her door, so he might not have gone through with it. She opened a blank email.

Sorry, I've been dealing with a lot of stuff lately. I'm still alive. Please don't worry about me.

- Mary

Less than thirty seconds after she hit "send," another message from him popped up.

Nice to know. But how do I know this is really you? Maybe you're just someone using Mary's account.

- Drew

Mary rolled her eyes and opened another blank message.

For real? Geez, you're paranoid.

- Mary

His next message appeared faster than the last one.

Well, if you're really you, then you'll meet me where we first met. I'm working late tonight. The code to get in is 8709. See you then.

- Drew

Mary sighed. "I'm starting to regret I ever met this guy." But she emailed him back and said she'd be there after she visited her grandmother.

Phos went with her
to physical therapy after school and later to Agape to have dinner with Ba. When they were leaving, she asked, "Can you take me to the university? I just need to talk to someone there for a few minutes, and I don't want to wait around for late buses."

"Sure," he said. They sneaked around to the alley behind the
retirement home and translated.

Phos deposited them behind the law school. They didn't see any other students, so they walked across the dimly lit campus to the ugly Sci-Tech building.

"Wait here," Mary said. "This won't take long."

He nodded.

Mary found a keypad with numbers next to the door. She typed in the code Drew had given her, and the door unlocked. Half of the lights were off in the building, but Mary managed to remember how to find the Astronomy department. Inside, she saw Drew typing furiously at a computer terminal.

"H
appy now?" she snapped.

"
Eeeyyyyiiiiii
!" Drew yelped, jumping from his seat. His shirt said, "I Heart Pi." "Geez, don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Sorry," she said. "But the FBI? Did you really call them?"

"Yeah," he said.

"And?"

"They didn't believe me," he said. "At least, that's what they
said
."

She sighed
. "Anyway, you see it's really me. So can you please stop emailing me?"

"Hey, you came to me first with your alien
parasite problem," he said. "Oh! I've been wanting to show you something." He turned back to his computer.

"Look, Drew
—" she began.

"You remember how
I told you about that extra pair of ghost chromosomes in your friend's DNA results?" he asked. "Well, I've been going over some things and I think I've figured out their frequency. If we can take that frequency, reverse it, and calibrate it into some kind of device that can focus it intensely, it may disrupt the alien energy and make it leave. I was thinking for doing this large scale, an MRI machine should work. I have a lab tech buddy who might be able to sneak us into the clinic where he works and let us use theirs—"

"No," Mary said. "It's not worth it. He's leaving on his own anyway."

Drew turned around. "
He
? You mean you know for sure?"

Mary nodded. "He
told me what he is. It won't be long before he has to give Carter back his body. But he will."

Drew said nothing for a moment.
He opened his mouth, but then his eyes wondered to something behind her.

Mary turned and saw a man standing by the closed window. At least, she thought he was a man at first
, until she realized he wasn't wearing any clothes. He looked like he was covered in mud. More accurately, he looked like he was
made
of mud.

"Can I help you?" Drew asked.

The man didn't answer right away. Then, he looked at Mary and said, "You have been found."

Mary stared
. The more she looked at him, the more he sort of reminded her of Mayim, except mud instead of water. Suddenly, her heart began pounding faster. "Drew. We have to get out of here."

"Wait a minute," he said. "I can't leave
all this expensive equipment with this guy."

"He's not human,"
Mary said quickly. "We have to—"

The earthy radiant began walking towards her. "Do not resist." He reached
his fingerless hand towards her.

Mary bolted for the door.
"Drew! Run!" she shouted.

She was nearly at the exit when the earth
y radiant translated in front of her. She skidded to a stop as he reached for her again.

WEEEIIINNNNGGGG!

Mary clapped her hands over her ears at the piercing noise. Behind her, Drew was wearing earmuffs and held some kind of weird machine that looked like a giant video game controller. When he switched it off, the noise was gone.

The radiant stopped moving, as if he was in a movie and someone had hit the pause button.