Page 36 of Alien in the Attic

“If you say so,” Carmen said, her tone telling him everything he needed to know. She didn’t believe him.

He’d witnessed the ugliest kinds of bigotry during his time on Earth. Human beings loathing one another because their skin was a different color, their food smelled different, or they worshiped a separate god.

It seemed so petty to him. Instead of seeing and embracing what united them, like an urge to protect their family, the importance of heritage, or pride in their communities, they chose to focus on the insignificant differences as if they were unpassable chasms.

Looking at the situation from her point of view—as someone who was raised in that divided environment with brown skin, which he had learned in itself held implications on Earth—he could understand her hesitance to believe him. However, what she didn’t understand was that his people could be more logical than humans. They looked down on the Flores family because they had been told a lie for the last several decades. Once they learned the truth, attitudes would change.

He wanted to take her in his arms and explain that all to her now. But that would have to wait. As much as it pained him to admit, they had more important matters to see to at the moment. He told himself she understood.

“Are you hungry?” he asked her.

“Not really,” she said, shaking her head. Her mouth was turned down in a glum expression.

Arccoo bent at the knees and plucked a ruby petal. Pinching it gently, the flesh of the leaf had just the right amount of give tosuggest ideal ripeness. “All the same,” he said, standing. “You’re going to want to try this.”

He held out the petal. It looked small and fragile in his hand. Carmen rolled her eyes and accepted his offering. The petal seemed to double in size once her slender hand took possession of it.

Smiling, he watched her bring the petal to her mouth and bite it. Her annoyed and disinterested face burst to life as the sweet and tangy blood of the petal no doubt washed over her taste buds.

“Wow!” she said, chewing the petal. “That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever tasted.”

Arccoo recalled how often he craved them as a child. “Rocco and I used to get in all kinds of trouble for eating too many of these and spoiling our dinners.”

Carmen waved her sisters over, telling them theyhadto try the petal.

After Arccoo found one for each of them, he watched their faces react similarly to Carmen’s.

“Quite delicious,” Elena said, her jaw moving slowly as if she were examining the flavor.

“Holy shit, that’s good!” Sofia exclaimed. “If anything else tastes like this, I’m going to devour your whole garden.”

Happy that the tension had somewhat subsided, Arccoo gently brought their discussion back to the topic at hand.

“We know that whatever Rocco’s plan is, it doesn’t involve helping our people,” he said. “At least, not in the way I intended.”

“Didn’t you say the parantaa can be destructive?” Carmen asked. “That’s why it was removed from your world. Right?”

“How long ago was this?” Elena asked.

“Many ages,” Arccoo told her. “Back when we were a deeply fearful people, interested in conquest and power.”

Elena sucked the ruby flavor from her thumb. “Well, at the risk of falling into the trap of thinking like an Earthling, it might be worth considering that not everyone here has lost that interest in expansion and violence.”

Arccoo puffed out his wide chest. He didn’t like the idea of someone suggesting that the baser nature of his species may still be lingering and threatening to become a dominant trait once again. Those ages long passed were an ugly and savage time for Thryal. The idea of returning to that was too much for him to stomach.

Instead of lashing out or accusing his love’s sister of being simple, he let out his captured breath and calmly asked her to explain.

Elena shrugged. “Physics, right? Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If Thryal has made this seismic shift to a peaceful, logical society, it only stands to reason that somewhere out there is another species that sees that as a weakness. Do you have any enemies? Any aggressors who have been more active than usual? If so, your brother might get desperate and see the staff as an answer to your problem.”

Arccoo rubbed his chin, thinking. Could the Brenvis be enough of a threat to send his brother down a dark path? It was possible, he had to admit. Before jumping to that conclusion, however, he had to be certain of something.

“Why don’t we learn some more about the history of the parantaa?” he said.

The four of them went to the annex library. Cloaked guards followed the humans with their eyes. Arccoo noticed Carmen tensing, wrapping her arms over her body as if trying to protect herself from their gaze. She had told him about the struggles she had with her appearance. Being watched like this probably wasn’t helping her self-image.

Another discussion for another time, he told himself, burying the need to console her deep in his stomach.

They split into two teams. Elena and Sofia scoured the tomes for references to the parantaa while Arccoo and Carmen surveyed scrolls. She seemed distant, disinterested in what they were doing. When he tried to show her something he thought she might find interesting, she simply nodded and went back to herown investigating. He got the sense that she didn’t want to be around him.

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