~~~
The next morning, Kuma and Un-Thor ran home to Dothan and Omaha. They could safely stay there, and Dala in Bennettsville, as the names Camille Delacroix, Andy Meadows, and Delia le Mars never arose in the investigation into the deaths of Dr. Ventnor and the three artifact-hunters. Dr. Ventnor never actually used the names of any of his subjects in the files on alien physiology and psychology that the police found in his office.
Those files started a firestorm in the media. Talking heads debated endlessly whether Dr. Ventnor had just been running a hoax that blew up in his face, or really had been hiding alien children. Respectability favored the former model; numbers, the latter.
Lona and I became the faces of alien children, polite academic overachievers who'd killed and fled. On talk shows, some wondered aloud how such innocent-looking, doll-like faces could belong to killers. Others quoted the Biblical verse that even the devil can appear as an angel of light.
Pundits debated whether Lona and I were murderers who'd fled from guilt, or victims who'd fled from fear of persecution. Pundits debated even more fiercely whether we were really aliens, or just, as we'd claimed for twelve years, Afghan war-orphans with shared genetic anomalies. It helped our case that no alien artifacts or biological specimens had surfaced. At least, the Clorox had worked.
Even those of you who hadn't met me again on the earth heard of the alien-hunter scandal. It was the stuff of news features and talk shows for weeks on end. It didn't hurt the scandal that the California State Police found the body of Donald Stormgren bound and burned in an abandoned cabin near Mount Lassen. I held Lona while she cried for a man who'd left her long before.
I learned some of the news from filching discarded newspapers and stealing WiFi with my laptop, but most of it from Dala, Kuma, and Un when they brought Lona and me supplies. They brought these with their earth-parents' permission; as the avengers of Dr. Ventnor's death, Lona and I could do no wrong in his former patients' eyes.
Dala and Un were troubled, but supportive; Kuma, her usual light-hearted, outspoken self. "You know, you two," she said to Lona and me when she brought us much-needed panties and socks, "if you went onto some talk shows, you could earn enough money for us Tani to live like kings."
I was about to make a sour remark when Lona beat me to it. "Before or after we get cut open in Area 51?"
Detectives and reporters interviewed all of my and Lona's acquaintances. I was lucky enough to download a reporter's interview with Kendra and Millie on pirated WiFi.
"How do you feel about your friend's being a fugitive?" a blonde poodle-woman asked my two friends.
"It's just wrong!" Kendra called out. "What did Belle do but guard her home from men who'd already killed?"
"Now, everyone is saying that she's a space alien because that doctor in Columbus had those silly files," Millie said.
"Don't you believe that Belle might be an alien?"
"What if she is?" Kendra called out. "She's still a better human than most whom I know."
"She's a true friend," Millie said. "I just hope that she's all right wherever she is, and that she can come home soon."
By now, you should be able to guess that I wept when I saw that interview. I really wish that I'd trusted Kendra and Millie with my secret. I just hope that, when the Work is well in hand, I can tell them how much they mean to me.
I urged Kuma and the other Tani still living at home to keep a backpack handy at all times and to be ready to jump through the nearest window. As for Lona and me, we moved from shelter to shelter. We had the money that I'd taken from my house, and grew expert at finding lost coins and bills. When Dala brought us some hair dye, we dyed our hair black, which made us look even more alien than we are, but different from the pictures on the news. Some cheap reading glasses completed our disguises and let us shop at dollar stores for what we couldn't find.
Yes, I did put my Girl Scout training to use! Lona and I found edible roots and herbs in the woods, and caught with our bare hands fish that we baked with heat-crystals. It may sound strange for a fugitive to say so, but I felt guilty for fishing with no license, and for tickling fish, which is illegal almost everywhere. Still, Lona and I needed meat to go with our water cress, dandelion greens, and cattail tubers.
We weren't wholly inactive. We helped Dala, Kuma, and Un-Thor move and hide their crystal-ships, crystals, and books. Soon, Lona and I had three more shelters where we could hide.