The Murk

by Robert Lettrick

  “You okay, sis?” Creeper asked.

  She rubbed her forehead and felt a tender egg where Perch had clipped her with his elbow. She had a wicked headache too. “I just watched a twisted rerun of a bad lunch date in my head, but otherwise I think I’m fine.”

  Perch, on the other hand, wasn’t fine at all. He was having a meltdown on the shore, and Tad was having a devil of a time trying to restrain him. The siblings scrambled to help.

  “He won’t listen to me,” Tad said. “I’m afraid if I let him up, he’ll dart back into the water.”

  “Get off me!” Perch roared. “She’s drowning! I have to save her!”

  “She’s gone, man!” Tad pounded him with the awful truth. “Macey’s gone. The last thing she’d want is for you to throw your life away by getting into that water again.”

  Tad was pressing down on Perch’s back with both hands and had one of his arms pinned beneath his shin. It was an awkward, unbalanced position; he wasn’t sure he could hold Perch for long. He’d wrested the knife free from Perch’s hand and tossed it into the mud. If the kid had been in his right mind, there’d be no way Tad could have accomplished any of this. Tad needed reinforcements. “Creeper! Piper! Get over here and help!”

  Piper jumped in and caught hold of Perch’s free arm (at the time, he was using it to reach around and punch Tad in the leg). She grasped his hand tightly, squeezing it every few seconds. Piper could only imagine the depth of his anguish. Macey had been more than just his first mate. She was his family.

  “I’m so sorry, Perch,” Piper cooed. “Please don’t fight us anymore. We want to let you up. We want to help you.…”

  Perch flapped around on the ground for several more seconds, then abruptly gave up the struggle, falling completely limp. He dropped his chin into the muck. “Just leave me here,” he sobbed. “I don’t care anymore. Leave me here to suck mud.”

  “Macey wouldn’t want that either,” said Piper, choosing her words carefully. “She’d want you to survive this and get home alive. She’d want that for all of us.”

  Perch let out a grief-stricken moan, like the mooing of a sickly cow.

  “Listen to me,” said Piper. “Macey could have given up when her daughter died all those years ago, but she didn’t. She had a good life and helped a lot of people in the process. And maybe in a way you were like her second chance, Perch. You were like a son to her; I could see that right away. She’d want you to keep going, grow up and grow old. Something Georgia never had the chance to do. Macey was a brave woman. She didn’t let tragedy beat her, and now she’s in a better place. She’s with Georgia now. Let her be your example here.”

  Tad looked at Piper in amazement. Where had those words come from? It had been a long time, but there she was. The girl he’d fallen in love with.

  “All right. I know you’re right. Okay.” Perch sniffled. “I’m good now. Can you please let me up?”

  They did, but they formed a blockade between him and the water, just in case. When they were certain he wouldn’t try anything stupid, they gave him some space.

  For the next ten minutes, Perch didn’t utter a single word. Like a shorebird, he just paced across the beach, staring at the mud. Finally he calmed down and began the task of cleaning himself up. He’d lost his T-shirt head wrap when he dove off the battery, so he had nothing to swab the mud off his body. He used his hands to squeegee as much of it off as he could. Then he combed his filthy hair back with his fingertips.

  “I look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, don’t I?” he said in a fragile voice.

  What he looked like to Piper was a strong young man made weak by a great loss.

  “Nah. You’re ready for the paparazzi.” Piper rubbed the back of his arm. “Or at least a hike.”

  “A hike?” Perch balked at the idea. “We can’t hike our way out of here. The last guy who tried was lost in the Oke for forty-two days. When I’ve rested a bit, I’ll swim for the Mud Cat. It’s our only way out of this place.”

  “I thought we agreed; nobody’s going back into the water?” said Tad. “We’ll hike west. Hopefully reach a road by tomorrow.”

  “No way,” said Perch. “If we leave here and you’re wrong, we may not be able to find our way back to our only mode of transportation.”

  Creeper stomped hard in the mud. “You can’t go back into the water with that…that monster!”

  “The anaconda”—Perch’s jaw flexed involuntarily—“is busy.”

  “My brother isn’t talking about the snake,” said Piper. “There’s something you should know about the plant.”

  “You mean other than the fact that it leaks out some kind weird Jedi-mind-trick chemical to control a legion of animals? And that it’s holding a grudge against us for stealing its pretty corsage? What else is there to know?”

  Piper believed that preposterous ideas needed to be stated in the most straightforward way possible. “I think the plant is Mergo.”

  “I do too,” Creeper said quickly, in lockstep with his big sister now that she’d made amends.

  Perch cackled. “You two must be drunk on the stink water. That thing is no monster or demon. It’s just a stupid plant with a couple of nasty tricks up its leaves. Right, Big Brain? Tell them how crazy they sound.”

  Tad gazed off at the bent stalk in the middle of the lagoon. “Honestly? I think that plant is what my ancestor’s guides feared. And I think it’s what probably killed them all.”

  Perch rolled his pretty eyes. “Are you trying to tell me that this plant is some kind of deranged serial killer? Plants can’t think! They don’t even have brains!”

  “Some of what you’ve said is true,” said Tad. “Plants aren’t, as a rule, murderous and evil. Their reactions are instinctual, not deliberate. They don’t scheme like we do. But they can sense when they’re being threatened.”

  Perch let this sink in. “So you agree, right? It’s just a dumb plant.”

  “I think Mergo is a killer. I’d bet the vasculum on that. While the volatiles are a neat trick, the plant doesn’t need the animals to kill for it. It’s capable of doing its own dirty work. And it seems to be coordinating its attacks on us. That means something.”

  Perch threw his hands up in frustration. “Well, now you’ve lost me!”

  Piper explained about how the pods had trapped and nearly drowned her and Creeper, and would have if Tad hadn’t saved them. “It happened so fast. Sucked us right up and there was nothing we could do to stop it.”

  “So it acts exactly like a bladderwort,” Perch said, satisfied with his assessment.

  “No,” said Tad. “The bladderwort reacts automatically when something brushes against its trigger hairs. Like how you can’t help but kick when a doctor tests your reflexes by hitting you below the knee with a rubber mallet. But I think that even without a brain, or at least a brain in the traditional sense, Mergo has evolved some unique mechanism that gives it predator intelligence. It sensed our presence in its water, it tried to kill you when you cut into the stalk. And now it’s reacting to the damage we caused it. A bladderwort can’t do that. There are other differences too. I’m talking about Mergo’s network of branches. If you think of the ones with the pods as veins, then the four giant podless branches would be the plant’s arteries. I’m not sure where the arteries lead to or what their purpose is. To be honest, I think Mergo is a true miracle. It may be the forerunner of some evolutionary shift in the plant kingdom. Maybe someday plants will be at the top of the food chain, like how mammals took over for the dinosaurs. Think about it. We discovered Mergo! This could be the most important new species since—”

  “Whoa, there,” Perch cut him off. “It almost sounds like you want to join the misfit protection program with the snakes and gators. This monster you’re in love with killed my friend. If I could, I’d rip it up from the swamp floor and jam it in a giant wood chipper.”

  Tad blushed. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Good,” Perch said. “
Don’t get too attached to that…thing, Big Brain, because once I get you three to safety, I’m comin’ back here to kill it.”

  “You mean if Mergo lets you,” Tad said.

  This challenge was the last thing Perch needed to hear. “You think that plant’s gonna kill my Macey and get away with it? I promise you this, I’m gonna stick my green thumb right up its—”

  “Stop it!” Piper was sick of the pointless posturing. At that moment, Mergo was holding all the cards. They were trespassing in its domain, and they needed to get far away from the lagoon. “Let’s decide. I vote we try to hike out. I think getting back into the water would be suicide. Even if one of us did make it to the Mud Cat, that didn’t stop Mergo from killing Macey. She was in the boat. The gar knocked her out, remember?”

  “Stop calling it Mergo!” Perch flared. “It’s just a plant!”

  “I’m siding with Piper,” said Tad.

  Perch threw his arms up and danced a mocking jig. “Well, there’s the surprise of the century! Tad votes with Piper!”

  “What on earth is that supposed to mean?” Piper asked.

  “Shut up, Perch.” Tad warned him with a look.

  “Wake up, Princess!” Perch said, then jerked his thumb at Tad. “This dope is in love with you! Are you really that naive?”

  “What? No, he’s not!” Piper protested. In a day full of outrageous ideas, this took the cake. If Tad, her friend of forever and a day, was in love with her, she’d be able to tell.

  “You don’t think?” said Perch. “I guess I know Big Brain better than you do.”

  “Shut up!” Tad snapped.

  “Tad and I are just friends,” Piper insisted. “We have been for years. Well…not this past year, but that was my fault.”

  Perch pointed out the flaw in her thinking. “So after a year of being a bad friend, you came to him with your problem, and Big Brain didn’t tell you to go suck a lemon? He just said, ‘Why sure, Piper! I’d be happy to go poking around the biggest swamp in the country to help you find a flower that nobody has ever seen in like…ever!’ Yeah, like that makes sense, Princess.”

  Piper knew that Perch was in a dark place, so she tried to be patient with him. Only one person knew how Tad felt, and that was Tad. “Tell Perch he’s wrong so we can drop this.”

  Tad stayed quiet.

  “Tad? Tell him,” she prodded.

  Tad sighed. “I can’t, Piper. I can’t tell him that.”

  Piper was stunned. “So…it’s true?”

  Perch snatched his knife from Tad’s hand and slammed it into the sheath on his belt. “Now that we’ve cleared the air, I guess we’d better get a move on. No need to finish the vote. I don’t want any more dirty secrets stinking up my boat. We’ll walk.” He took one last long at the Mud Cat. “I’ll be back for you, darling,” he promised. Then he whirled off toward the forest with Creeper dogging his heels, leaving Piper and Tad to stare awkwardly at each other.

  Piper’s cheeks flushed pink, making her freckles disappear. “I…I didn’t know.”

  “You weren’t supposed to,” Tad muttered. His tone was flat and frosty. “Don’t worry about it. We won’t talk about it again. And I’m sorry about the flower. I’m sorry about Grace.”

  Before she could reply, he turned and strode after the other boys.

  Piper looked out across the lagoon and surveyed the damage she’d caused. The Mud Cat was abandoned and unreachable. Macey was gone. The flower was gone. Her one chance to save Grace was gone with them. It was all over. Well, not entirely over. They still had to trek their way to safety, and while they were leaving Mergo behind, the danger was still considerable. There were rattlesnakes and biting insects and the biggest threat of all: being totally lost with only five or six hours of daylight left before dark.

  Her eyes lingered on the johnboat resting vacant in the water. It was full of camping equipment, but they’d have none of it tonight. Well, except for the flashlight. She patted the cylindrical bulge of it through the fabric of her shorts pocket. At least they’d have light. Until the batteries died.

  Piper looked to the sky and peered hard in the direction where she hoped her star was. She imagined it looking down at her and grinning wickedly, as if to say, This is what you get for going back on a promise.

  Cut me a break! she begged. I’m trying so hard to make this right. Just let me get my brother home safely.

  At first there was no reply. There was just the expansive blue sky masking the stars. But then something skimmed across it. A hint of red, just a flutter. Piper couldn’t believe it. She followed it until it vanished beyond the cypress canopy. Maybe it was a sign sent from above. She chose to believe that. The extinguished coals of hope began to glow again. Piper trotted after it with a fresh spring in her step. It had streaked overhead, traveling in the same direction as the boys. West. This was fortunate. She didn’t think they’d listen to her if she asked them to change course. They were tired of Piper dragging them into trouble.

  “Wait up!” she called, knowing full well they wouldn’t.

  “We’ll keep marching west until we stumble upon civilization,” said Perch, taking point on the plan he had nixed just minutes earlier. His workload was light. This wasn’t rain forest that had to be hacked through with a machete. The forest here wasn’t much different from the one on Billy’s Island, except the trees were crusted with black, fire-curled bark and laden with foliage so vividly green that looking up for too long intensified Piper’s headache.

  “This won’t be like marching out of a desert,” Perch warned. “We’re not going to die of thirst or exposure to the elements. We just have to be careful to avoid stepping on rattlers, cottonmouths, and coral snakes. Or brushing bare skin up against poison sumac or ivy. Don’t eat any berries you find until I’ve signed off on them. You might give yourselves the green-apple quickstep, and there are no toilets ’round here, I assure you. Oh, and if anyone asks ‘Are we there yet?’ I’m likely to blow my lid. Are we clear?”

  “Got it,” said Tad. “Besides, I’m pretty sure we’ll know when we’re there. We’re not stupid.”

  “That’s debatable,” Perch growled. “This isn’t a sightseein’ trip. It’s survival. Do what I say and we’ll live.”

  Perch kept a good distance from Tad and Piper, but he found it impossible to shake Creeper, who had to run in periodic bursts to keep up because of his short legs. Tad and Piper were able to talk privately as long as they whispered, although Tad could barely look at her now.

  “I messed up,” Piper said. “This is all my fault.”

  “Not entirely,” said Tad. “I could have said no. I could have, and you wouldn’t have come here without me.”

  “You said yes because you never gave up on me, Tad, even though I was mean to you. If I hadn’t pushed you away a year ago, it would have been easier for you to tell me how crazy this plan was. Instead, you went along with it because you…” She had trouble speaking the words.

  “Go ahead and say it,” Tad prodded. “The cat is out of the bag. I went along with it because I like you. A lot.”

  “See? It’s all my fault.”

  “Let’s just agree to disagree,” he said. “Besides, I’m the descendant of Dr. Brisbane Cole. I suppose that made his quest mine too.”

  “Maybe,” said Piper, but she knew he was just trying to make her feel less guilty. “Tad, I honestly had no idea that you felt so—”

  “Drop it, okay? I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Sorry.”

  They passed through a tight corridor of saw palmettos and were forced to pay attention or get pricked. When they exited, Tad had a new topic ready.

  “There’s something I don’t understand about Mergo,” he said.

  “Just one thing?”

  “It’s a freak of evolution, no doubt about that. But what I don’t get is how it reproduces.”

  “Yuck. Who cares? As long as it doesn’t spread to Jesup.”

  “Piper, this could be import
ant. It’s a flowering plant—we know that. The silver flower was the reason we came.”

  She slapped a yellow fly off her cheek before it could bite. “So?”

  “Sometimes flowers can be self-pollinating, and maybe that’s the answer, but most flowering plants need animal pollinators, like bees or bats. In Mergo’s case, it would have to be something a lot bigger than a bee. Possibly a bat, but probably something bigger than that.”

  Piper’s mind drifted to the story of the Daughters of the Sun. Right before the Seminole warriors were hit by a wave, some kind of creature had screeched. Something the Seminoles didn’t recognize. But she’d scolded Creeper for believing that myth, and she felt stupid for considering it now. “Bats,” she said. “Probably just bats.”

  “Fine, let’s assume the pollinators are bats. That would mean there was more than one flower in the swamp, and the pollinators were traveling between them.”

  Piper stopped in her tracks and grabbed Tad’s arm. “Wait! There may be two flowers in the swamp? Or more?”

  “It’s possible, I suppose.”

  “That’s amazing news! Why didn’t you say so earlier? Don’t you get it? If there’s more than one flower, that means we get another shot at saving Grace!”

  “Piper, more than one flower means more than one Mergo.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of that.” They started walking again.

  “But to be honest, I think Mergo’s flower is just for show,” Tad said. “Maybe the plant doesn’t reproduce through pollination at all. There is another way. Bladderworts reproduce through pollination, but also through fragmentation.”

  “I’m sure whatever that is, it’s spectacularly gross, but Mergo does flower, so you can spare me the nasty details. Besides, if Mergo reproduces through some other method, then why would it need a flower at all?”

  “Bait, Piper,” said Tad. “The flower could be bait.”

  “Bait? Bait for what?”

  “Who do you think? Bait for us. We came looking for it, didn’t we?”

  “Are you saying it knew we were coming? That it sensed us conspiring over Dr. Cole’s journal all the way over in Jesup?”