text: The green woman with the vine hair is pounding her fist on the worm creature's front row of fangs as it devours her feet first. The creature itself is snaking off of a giant gray hand whose other "fingers" chew on blue, red, and golden children.
  
  "Well," you say to Esmeralda, "it seems Margaret's love of the morbid and bizarre hasn't diminished any."
  
  The two of you are standing in a long green hall with blue carpeting on the floor and Margaret's paintings lining the walls. The roof above your heads is a segmented skylight with palm fronds swaying above the glass panes.
  
  "I'm assuming these paintings are an attempt at Surrealism," Esmeralda suggests.
  
  "Yeah, she'd been working on an illustrated dream journal when I was still a student at Ursuline. Guess she's got some skeletons of her own locked away in the cellar. Would you say she's closer to Max Ernst of Salvador Dali?"
  
  "I'd say Ernst."
  
  "Well, maybe that's for the best. My paternal grandfather'd always told me Dali liked Franco."
  
  "Yes, I remember. The fascists were why he'd left Spain."
  
  "I hope they get back soon. I want to ask Margaret if she'd be willing to come back with us to Lozano's Island."
  
  "May I ask, Sandra, how she could be of help if she did? She's still in school right now. I doubt she'd be willing to spend days in a small skiff being tossed by waves."
  
  "Semester Break is coming soon, though. She'll have more time in a few weeks. Besides, that lecherous woman she's with might be able to get us some faster transportation. It's the least Patricia could do after short-changing me on my dad's coins."
  
  You step over to another painting. A powder blue baby with an enlarged cranium seems to be wailing a silent scream as the top of its bald head hinges open like a trapdoor and a shriveled old man with blood-shot eyes and a wicked grin climbs out.
  
  "Wow!" you add. "I almost think Margaret needs more help than I do. What is with these creepy images? She actually dreams these things?"
  
  Esmeralda cocks her metal head at an angle. "Sandra, I think you'll want to save the rest of this conversation for latter. I hear a car pulling up and it sounds like Patricia's."
  
  "Oh, well then I guess I should save any snide comments about Miss Brightman for another time."
  
  "Good behavior is the order of the day."
  
  Soon Patricia (attired in all white) steps in, a rather forlorn-looking Margaret slowly following. Margaret is wearing a sunny blue dress with flowers, but her frowning face is turned down. Then you notice a white towel bundled in her arms.
  
  She sees you, steps passed Patricia, and holds the bundle up to you.
  
  "Sandra," she says in a sobbing voice, "I'm sorry to tell you this...but Periwinkle..."
  
  "What is it?" you ask, coming up to her and looking down at the towel in her arms.
  
  Wrapped like a swaddling babe is Periwinkle. His eyes are closed and he seems very, very still.
  
  "Oh, my God..." you continue. "He-he's not..."
  
  Tears fill Margaret's eyes as she nods ascent. "It was the thunderstorm we had yesterday. I was stuck in my last class when it happened. I'm sorry. I should have made an excuse to leave so I could check on him. When I did get out, he was like this." She wipes her eyes with the back of one hand. "I thought that sense he was an amphibian, he could handle some rain. Please forgive me."
  
  You take the bundle from her arms and stare into Periwinkle's little face. "No, don't blame yourself, Margaret." You glare at Patricia, who gives you a stony look. "You weren't the one who wouldn't let him have better accommodations."
  
  "It's unfortunate," says Patricia, "but your pet wouldn't have faired any better if you'd left it in the wild."
  
  You feel your face turn hot. Beneath the towel, one of your hands clenches into a fist.
  
  > try and Contain your Rage and Consider the Bigger Picture
  You can't stand to be in the same room as Patricia right now, so you run with Periwinkle's remains to the women's restroom. You place the poor salamander-cat next to the basin of a sink and stare into the mirror at yourself. You've already been through so much as it is. Why'd this little guy have die too? And why did it have to be because of that selfish older woman who's taken away your girlfriend?
  
  You sigh heavily, turn on the water, and wet your face.
  
  The door opens and Esmeralda steps in. "I'd thought you could stand to talk to someone right now, Sandra."
  
  "Thanks, Esse," you say, tearfully. "I hate that woman. She's such an unfeeling monster."
  
  Esmeralda pats your shoulder. "I'd hardly say she's unfeeling. Just confused when it comes to extending those feelings to other people."
  
  "What does Margaret see in her? Patricia should just date someone her own age."
  
  "It may be an issue of power. Patricia is an older person who can help Margaret achieve her dreams so Margaret feels a need to go along with her wishes."
  
  "This can't possibly be a healthy relationship they have, Esse. I think Patricia's just used to getting what she wants. There are no boundaries for her. She just thinks she can use her money and clout to get what she wants, consequences be damned. For all my issues with my parents, they at least had a concept of right and wrong. Patricia, though...it's like she's completely amoral."
  
  "I doubt that she's quite as bad as you think. Not that I feel she's a saint by any stretch of the imagination."
  
  The door opens again and Margaret enters. "Sandra, I just wanted to see how you were doing."
  
  You look to her and smiley sadly. "I'd be lying if I said I was feeling better."
  
  Margaret hugs you and you put your arms around her. "I was talking to Patricia just now, Sandra. She's really sorry about what happened to Periwinkle. She told me she'd like to make up for it somehow."
  
  This come as a complete surprise. You almost think Margaret is just lying to cheer you up.
  
  "Are you serious?" you ask.
  
  "She told me that what happened with Periwinkle reminded her of when she was a little girl and her pet cocker spaniel got run over by a car." Margaret sighs. "Well, she'd actually told me that story a month ago and I reminded her about it just now. But the point is that she wants to help your investigation."
  
  "Thanks to your coaxing, I gather?"
  
  Margaret shrugs, a sheepish look on her face. "What matters is I was able to get through to her. What do you think you'll need?"
  
  "I need to examine the rocket ship remains on Lozano Island. And I want you to come with me. Not her. I don't want her around. Can she get us transportation?"
  
  She sighs again. "She has an auto-gyro. It's got an auto pilot mode if you don't want Patricia to come along. But why do you want me to come?"
  
  "You're an artist. You don't think like other people do. I need the kind of weird outlook someone like you has."
  
  "Uh, is that supposed to be a compliment?"
  
  You smile. "Of course."
  
  Margaret stares up at the ceiling in thought. "Okay, I guess I could help you out. I have some time off in a few weeks."
  
  "I know. And we could bring poor Periwinkle here to the island for a proper burial. My only concern is the security codes to fly into the island air space without getting blown out of the sky."
  
  Esmeralda touches a claw to your shoulder. "You needn't worry about that, Sandra. Your father gave me all the security codes years ago as an emergency backup."
  
  You look to your robot in shock. "Really? Huh, you'd think he could have given me the damned codes..."
  
  > Comunique from the Dead
  The rains fall steadily the next day and the next. Staring out the ribbon window of Patricia's penthouse, you realize the monsoon season has indeed come early this year. Venus is not normally a bright, sunny world to begin with, but the dark overcast and perpetual downpour make your stay here in Virgil positively grim.
  
  You found an old shoe box in one of Patricia's closets and used it to house the remains of your beloved Periwinkle. Esmeralda guards the refrigerator where you've stored the dead salamander-cat, making sure Jefferson doesn't throw it out in his occasional cleanings. As to Patricia, she's been out for most of this time. You count yourself lucky that you're not forced to deal with her. When she does surface, Esmeralda acts as a go-between for you and the Miss Brightman.
  
  You're reluctant to honor Margaret's request that you attend her gallery show the following Saturday. She's very upset when you tell her you'd rather not go, but you soon make it clear to her that it's not because of Patricia.
  
  "Some of my parents' friends and associates might be there," you explain. "I don't want to have to make up some excuse as to why I'm there and they aren't."
  
  "Maybe talking to them would get you some useful leads," Margaret suggests.
  
  "I don't think I can take that chance. If one of them did have anything to do with my parents' murders, I doubt it would be a good idea to show myself."
  
  "People are going to see you at some point no matter what."
  
  You sigh. "I know..."
  
  In a few weeks Margaret's Semester Break begins and Patricia takes you, Margaret, and Esmeralda to the heliport where she keeps her personal auto gyro. "Try not to damage it, please," she says, handing you the keys.
  
  Esmeralda has placed ice cubes over in the shoe box to keep Periwinkle's remains cool. She places the box under her back seat in the aircraft. You and Margaret sit up front dressed in your blue blazers and black slacks and jungle boots and armed with your late father's ray guns.
  
  The trip back to Lozano's Island is uneventful, and the steady rain has (for the time) settled to a gentle patter. Soon the aircraft is hovering over the mist-shrouded treetops of the island. The mansion stands out of the hazy white, but you order the auto-pilot to fly past it. It's not long before the twisted metal wreckage of the rocket ship comes into view.
  
  "There!" you tell the auto-pilot. "Settle down among the debris, please."
  
  "Yes, ma'am," says a metallic voice from a metal grill in the cockpit's dashboard.
  
  The metal debris gets larger as the auto gyro settles onto the burnt sward. The aircraft's engine cuts off and the chopping sound of the propellor dies out with a yawning whirr. Now all you can hear is the windshield wiper moaning against the rain-speckled glass of the cockpit bubble.
  
  "Are you sure you want to start here first?" Margaret asks. "Wouldn't it be better if we dried off a bit in the house and got settled before exploring this wreckage?"
  
  "No," you insist. "I think we should check the ship now. The rain's bound to ruin the interior, especially since it will encourage the growth of Venusian mold. We need to do this as soon as possible."
  
  "You know, dear," says Esmeralda, "you had the opportunity to check the wreckage when you and I were last on the island."
  
  "We didn't have Margaret with us then, Esse. I want her insight. Margaret, you're a maverick artist; you have unique way of looking at things. I think I need a perspective like yours."
  
  "Well, thanks, I guess," says Margaret, "but I think you might be overrating be deductive skills, Sandra. I'm not exactly Sherlock Holmes, you know."
  
  "Nevertheless, I want someone with an off-kilter viewpoint." You unbuckle the safety strap crisscrossing your chest and turn the latch on the door to step out.
  
  "That's a compliment you just gave me, right?"
  
  "Of course." Your black umbrella unfolds like the wings of a giant bat as you run across the charred grass to the main section of rocket ship wreckage. You stand in the airlock doorway and beckon Margaret and Esmeralda, who both run to you under the coverage of Margaret's own umbrella.
  
  "Probably would have been a good idea for you to wait for us," says Margaret, stepping into the ship.
  
  The interior is dark and dank and moist. Esmeralda's pink eyes brighten to high beams and illuminate the metal room the three of you are standing in. At the far end is a curved ribbon window with an electronic console beneath and two pilot's seats pulled up to the console.
  
  "Well," you say, "this must be the cockpit. Maybe we should look for the pilot."
  
  You approach the console gray light comes in through the dripping windscreen and you can make out a figure sprawled between the captain's chair and the control board. You kneel down and see the remains of a stocky, dark-haired man.
  
  "Esse, " you say, "could you come over hear and light this area a little better. Looks like I found a body."
  
  "Yes, Sandra." Esmeralda steps up beside you and the corpse on the floor is lighted in bloody hues.
  
  The dead man has white sideburns and the half of his face that you can see seems to be covered in a lumpy fungus.
  
  "Oh, looks like we were too late to beat the Venusian mold. Waite, what's this?"
  
  You notice a translucent cylinder clutched loosely in the corpse's hand. You carefully fish the object from the man's stiff fingers and lift it up to the diffused sunlight. You look to Esmeralda.
  
  "Do you know what this is?" you ask.
  
  Esmeralda reaches out a claw and takes the cylinder from you and eyes it. "I believe it's a ship's log. There, if you notice at the top it has a label with the initials S.L."
  
  "You think it could help us to play it?"
  
  Margaret steps over to your side. "Of course." She points to a slot in the control board. "Put it in there."
  
  You take the cylinder from Esmeralda and place it in the niche in the control board.
  
  Just then, a round screen above the slot flickers into life. A staticky, black and white image of the man on the floor materializes on the screen.
  
  "Hello, " says the image, "I am Harlan Zamora, captain of The Elizabeth Proctor. Unless you are able to get to me in a timely manner, this may be my last transmission. The fungus has spread over my legs and I'm afraid it will take root deep within my body soon. If not for that, I'd suggest there might be a way to revive me. I'll explain."
  
  > Like Lazarus Before Me
  The image of Captain Harlan Zamora stares at you from the video monitor, his face occasionally contorting with obvious pain.
  
  "This then is a confession," he says. "I was contacted by John Szymanski, the notorious man who'd always claimed to be the one person to survive being swallowed alive by one of the leviathans that live in the oceans of Venus. He and his girlfriend, Andrea Laughlin, were collecting alien artifacts that they--"
  
  You press the pause button on the playback. "Andrea Laughlin? She's my father's secretary!"
  
  "She was your father's secretary," corrects Esmeralda.
  
  "You don't need to rub it in, Esse."
  
  "I'm not, Sandra. What I meant is that she was fired some time ago."
  
  You look into Esmeralda's glowing pink eyes. "Really? Why?"
  
  "Perhaps now's not the best of times to go into that."
  
  "What's it matter now? I think we need to have all the information on the table. I'm trying to find out what's going on here."
  
  "Finish the video confession and then I'll tell you. I think what Captain Zamora has to say is of more pressing concern."
  
  Margaret puts a hand on your shoulder. "Esmeralda's right. Zamora's explaining why these terrible men came to the island."
  
  You sigh. "Okay, then."
  
  You unpause the video.
  
  Harlan continues. "--thought had something to do with the leviathans. John Szymanski had claimed to have been brought back from the dead by the creature that had swallowed him. He was convinced these sea creatures where some piece of the puzzle in achieving immortality. There had been several archeological finds (both on Venus and Mercury) by employees of the Vulcan Minerals Corporation that seemed to be linked to the leviathans. Having been a secretary to the Vice President of Vulcan Minerals, Andrea Laughlin was aware of these discoveries and told them to Szymanski. She knew that Michael Alexander Acosta--"
  
  You pause the video again. "I hate it when they do that!"
  
  "What?" asks Margaret. "Do what, Sandra?"
  
  "Anglocize his name. It was Miguel Alejandro Acosta."
  
  Margaret puts a hand over her eyes and sighs. "Can we just finish watching the video?"
  
  You resume the video.
  
  "--had some of the artifacts," Zamora continues. "Specifically, he had a depth projection photograph of a crystaline head found on Mercury and in the possession of Kendall Gregory Thompson the Third. The image was stored on a piece of microfilm and can be accessed by running a beam of compressed light (similar to the beams emitted by ray guns) through the film. This three-dimensional image of the crystal head would be a kind of map of what is supposed to be a network of tunnels in a cavern on the night side of Mercury."
  
  You pause the video.
  
  "Now what?" asks Margaret.
  
  "Kendall," you say. "Huh, I wonder how much he knows about this."
  
  "Sandra," says Esmeralda, "if young Kendall had anything to do with the tragic events that befell you and your parents, I doubt he would have any of the artifacts Captain Zamora has mentioned."
  
  "Can we just get to the end of the video, please?" asks Margaret. "I think he's given us some pretty vital information as it is."
  
  You sigh, resuming the video.
  
  "John Szymanski was also interested in retrieving a membrane that had been surgically removed from a captured leviathan," says Captain Zamora. "Apparently, this membrane was like the one he'd been trapped in when he was in his leviathan. From what Andrea Laughlin had been told by her employer, tests had been conducted on the membrane and it still remained living outside the leviathan. She'd also been informed that any dead test subjects placed within the membrane showed signs of life. From what Jay's men said as they were boarding, I believe they may have brought the membrane aboard the Elizabeth Proctor.
  
  "Jay Kelly shot me in the leg with his ray gun after that Acosta girl disabled the ship. He told me there could be no witnesses, the bastard. He double crossed me and left me here to die. It's been a day since we set down on Lozano's Island. The Venusian fungal rot has already set in the open wound of my leg and I feel it spreading. If I could move about the ship, I'd try and find the membrane and see if I could crawl inside it, but my whole lower body is in excruciating pain right now. I'm dying. I know that now. Like most spacers, I carry a syringe full of preservation serum on my belt, which I've already managed to inject myself with to preserve my remains. There's also a small radio on my belt that's tuned to Andrea's radio frequency. I'd activate it to signal her about my emergency situation, but I don't know if she was behind Jay's stabbing me in the back. If you get this message, tell the authorities what's going on. And tell me dear friend, Dumont Jones, I'm sorry I didn't listen to his advise and that I've never had a truer friend in all my life."
  
  He reaches forward to press something and the image flickers out.
  
  You look to Margaret and Esmeralda, sighing. "Well, I guess that explains a few things. Esmeralda, Jay Kelley was the one you didn't kill, right?"
  
  "I'm not sure, dear," says Esmeralda.
  
  "He was the redhead. I'm sure of that."
  
  Esmeralda shakes her head. "No, I didn't kill any redheads when the men came charging out of the ship."
  
  "Well, what should we do now?" asks Margaret.
  
  > contact the Authorities
  You realize that you have everything here to convict the people responsible for your parents' murders. There's a part of your heart that wants nothing more than for you to personally kill Andrea, her boyfriend John, and Jay Kelly. But you can see how Esmeralda's suggestion that you find a more civil solution makes too much sense. You've already been through so much hell as it is.
  
  At first, you try to activate the Elizabeth Proctor's radio, but soon you discover that it's circuits have shorted out. The rain's picked up since your party's arrival on Lozano Island, so you and Margaret quickly scurry across the burnt sward of grass with your umbrellas shielding your from the elements. Soon you reach Patricia's auto gyro and start fiddling with the knobs on the dashboard.
  
  "Here," says Esmeralda. "I'm familiar with the marshal's radio band." She adjusts the settings with her claw and hands you the microphone.
  
  You take a deep breath and then say: "Hello, this is Lozano's Island calling the marshal. Are you there? Over."
  
  It takes a few tries before you get hold of the deputy, who explains that Marshal Cecil Beche is out but will be back soon.
  
  "I-I...I need to report..." You swallow, your skin suddenly clammy and your heart racing. "I need to report a murder..."
  
  It's painful to go through all the details of the attack again, but you decide to soldier on. The deputy replies that he'll let Marshal Beche know all the details when he gets back. It's a half hour later that you get a callback on the radio from Cecil Beche confirming that he and his deputy can be there by sundown.
  
  You, Margaret, and Esmeralda make your way to the mansion and try to unwind. Esmeralda heads to the kitchen and makes you and Margaret hot tea, which the two of you gladly accept from her. The three of you sit in the parlor room and wile the hours away with conversation.
  
  "Thank you for coming, Margaret," you say between sips of your tea.
  
  "Anything for a friend," Margaret replies.
  
  Your blood chills at the word "friend," but you just sigh slowly and stare at your feet.
  
  "Although, I don't really think you needed my help," she adds.
  
  "The moral support you've given is all the help I could ask for. I've missed you."
  
  Margaret smiles and crosses her leg, balancing her tea and saucer on one knee. "I've missed you, too, Sandra."
  
  "Do you realize," says Esmeralda, "that if we'd known about Captain Zamora's confession, Sandra, we would never have had gone through all of this?"
  
  "Yes, we would have," you object. "We didn't have a working radio before we left. Plus, we were able to handle that horrible Chaucer. Which reminds me, Esse...You think we should tell Marshal Beche about Mama Helena? I mean, I could care less if that crazy old witch starved to death without Chaucer, but I am a little concerned about one of the girls from Ursuline Academy stumbling on her island."
  
  "You make a valid point, Mistress Sandra. Yes, let's tell the marshal about Mama Helena."
  
  You close your eyes and feel tears forming. There's been so much pain lately. And you certainly can't have any reconciliation with your mother or father now. And Margaret's settled on being with some perverse older woman with all the charm and compassion of the Bubonic Plague.
  
  Still, you're grateful for this moment. It's good to be with the ones you love.
  
  The End