text: [Themes: sci-fi, fantasy, female protagonist]
  
  You nervously carry the shoe box containing the remains of your beloved Periwinkle from the auto gyro to the wreckage of The Elizabeth Proctor. The rain's picked up considerably, but Esmeralda holds an umbrella over you and the ice-filled shoe box. Upon entering the ship, you gently set the shoe box down next to the steamer trunk, pull up the plastic lid, and remove the cold, wet body of the dead salamander-cat. You take a deep breath before settling Periwinkle into the glowing green membrane lining the steamer trunk.
  
  You wait a minute. Nothing.
  
  "Why isn't anything working?" asks Margaret.
  
  "I...I don't know," you reply, sadly.
  
  "I can think of one of two possibilities," says Esmeralda. "Either the membrane doesn't work, or perhaps little Periwinkle's biochemistry won't allow the effect."
  
  "Why would that be?"
  
  "Perhaps it's just some fluke of evolution, dear child. Periwinkle and the leviathans both came from Venus. Maybe there's a strange side effect when you mix Earth biochemistry with Venusian."
  
  "You mean," says Margaret, "the two world's life forms are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. You put them together and voila! Life."
  
  You reach into the steamer trunk and gently remove Periwinkle. "Sorry, little guy. I tried. I just hope you're resting in peace now."
  
  You press your lips to his tiny forehead and give him a kiss.
  
  > raise Your Mother
  Esmeralda objects to you putting your dead mother in the membrane, but you and Margaret outvote her so she reluctantly agrees to pull the body out of the kitchen freezer and carry it to The Elizabeth Proctor. You have her place your mother's remains into the faintly glowing green tissue lining in the inside of your father's steamer trunk.
  
  At first, there is little response. She just rests there like a mortician's corpse in a coffin. But then you notice a slight twitching in one of her eyelids.
  
  "Did you see that?" you ask excitedly.
  
  Margaret leans over and peers down at your mother's face, then looks up at you, mouth open. "Yes...Oh, my God, Sandra. I think something's happening!"
  
  The twitching in your mother's eyelid spreads across the side of her face until her cheek and mouth begin spasming.
  
  "Are you two sure you want to be doing this?" asks Esmeralda.
  
  "Shut up, Esmeralda," you snap. "This is my mother we're talking about here. You know there's a lot more you could have done to save her the day those men came."
  
  Soon your mother's head starts shaking back and forth. Here eyes open. She sits up in the trunk.
  
  "Mom!" you say. "Mom, are you alive? It's me, Sandra. Mom, can you hear me?"
  
  Your mother keeps shaking her head back and forth. The red dent in her forehead starts dripping blood and she grasps the wound with her hands. She screams.
  
  You can feel your heart pounding and your skin growing cold and moist. Maybe Esmeralda was right. Maybe this was a bad idea.
  
  "Mom!" you say. "Mom, it's okay. I brought you back."
  
  Your mother screams again. Then she starts muttering something in a strangely-familiar language that's neither English or Spanish.
  
  "What's she saying, Sandra?" asks Margaret.
  
  "I don't know. I think she's speaking Yaqui. They're one of the Indio peoples in Mexico. She's Yaqui on her mom's side." You sigh. "She never bothered to teach me any of the language when I was growing up; she'd mostly curse in it when she was mad. Esse, do you understand what she's saying?"
  
  Esmeralda slowly shakes her head. "No, dear. I'm afraid your mother never wanted me to learn her ancestral language."
  
  Leaning in, you wrap your arms around your screaming mother. She starts rocking back and forth and yells out more things in Yaqui. You try holding her steady, but she flinches and tries to squirm out of your arms.
  
  Blood is now pouring down the side of her face and you look at the open wound and notice bloody skull fragments sliding out, followed by what you're sure are chunks of brain. Eventually, your mother's rocking becomes so intense that your hurled to the metal floor. Your mother screams louder, and louder, and louder.Blood is spaying in all directions now, spattering Margaret and Esmeralda.
  
  "Sandra," says Margaret, "we've got to do something! She's going crazy!"
  
  "She has severe brain damage," says Esmeralda. "Not just from the concussion to her head, but also from the time her body was decomposing before I'd put it in the freezer."
  
  Esmeralda leans over the steamer trunk, grabs your mother's shoulder with one claw, and then uses her other claw to snip open the front of your mother's throat.
  
  You get up off the floor, screaming. "What did you just do to her, Esmeralda?"
  
  Esmeralda looks at you with soft, pink eyes. "It's called an act of mercy, dear."
  
  Your mother's whole body is now drenched in blood. She shakes a little, coughs up more blood, then slumps forward into the steamer trunk. She's stopped screaming, but now her body is shivering.
  
  You shakily raise yourself to a standing position and slowly stumble to your the trunk. You gasp out dryly.
  
  "Is...is she dead?" you finally ask.
  
  Margaret and Esmeralda stare into each other's eyes.
  
  Then Esmeralda looks to you. "No, Sandra. I think that as long as she's in the membrane, she'll have some semblance of life. I believe the only humane thing we can do now is to remove her."
  
  "Humane?" you ask, pulling out your ray pistol. "You talk about humane, you lousy robot! What does something as inhuman as you know about 'humane'?"
  
  "Sandra!" yells Margaret. "Put that gun away!"
  
  "You let her die in the first place, Esmeralda." You aim the barrel at your robot tutor.
  
  "No, Sandra!" Margaret runs to your side and tries to pull the gun out of your hands.
  
  You pull the trigger.
  
  A flash of blue light illuminates the interior of the cockpit.
  
  You hold down on the trigger, knowing only a continuous beam of energy will breach Esmeralda's carapace.
  
  Margaret clenches your wrists, forcing the gun to drop out of your hand.
  
  The beam stops and the gun clatters on the floor.
  
  You force your arms out of Margaret's hands and storm up to Esmeralda.
  
  Her side now singed black, Esmeralda raises an arm as if to shield a blow.
  
  You lunge at her and her arm swings...
  
  You head is stinging so you open your eyes. You're in your old bed. Margaret is standing at the foot.
  
  When she notices you're awake she runs up to your side and takes you in her arms. "Sandra! Oh, Sandra, we've been so worried about you."
  
  You inhale slowly. "What happened? We were in the the Elizabeth Proctor. How'd I get here?"
  
  "It's okay, Sandra. We took you to the house. Esmeralda...she accidentally struck you in the head and knocked you out."
  
  You sigh. "She killed my mother."
  
  Margaret puts her face in yours, her auburn locks brushing over her green eyes. "No, she didn't, Sandra. You're mother was already dead. There was nothing left. Her brain was too far gone."
  
  Your eyes water. "It was a foolish idea to put her body in the membrane."
  
  You feel your nose running and rub with the back of your hand.
  
  "But what about Andrea and the others?" you continue. "Aren't they coming?"
  
  "They already came. Esmeralda contact the marshal and he was able to get here before they did. He and his deputy were able to stop them right as they were climbing out of their rocket ship."
  
  "Are they dead?"
  
  Margaret shakes her head and smiles. "No, but they've been arrested. It's all over, Sandra. You can finally put this all to rest. You can get on with your life now."
  
  You close your eyes. "I don't know if I'm ready to talk to Esmeralda, right now. I don't know when I'll ever be able to talk to her."
  
  Margaret gently caresses the side of your face. "Give it time. I'll be here with you for the rest of the week, Sandra. We'll get through this."
  
  The End