Page 1 of A Light in the Dark
ONE
While frugal, I cared about what happened to my neighbors.
As it did every spring, Stonecreek flooded. The rest of the year, tourists questioned the layout of our streets, which featured tall curbs leading to wide sidewalks edging the looming,stone foundations of our houses. The steps for each residence or business had sloped sides designed to allow water to flow over them without destroying them. Every year, some needed to be replaced, but nobody minded.
Replacing the steps took a great deal less work and effort than replacing our homes.
Every year, I questioned my choice to be frugal. My steps would be among those needing to be replaced. Despite attempting to install a buffer to protect them, the flood waters had come with a vengeance, tearing away the wood before finishing what nature had started in previous years.
If I wanted to escape my home after the waters receded, I would need to recruit help or make use of my rope ladder, something I’d bought a few days prior .
My foundation was nine feet tall, and I wished the waters the best of luck tearing through the two foot thick stones. When I’d been given the chance to buy the property at a pittance, the first thing I’d done had been to shore the place, replacing the six inch, cracked stones with something meant to last. It’d cost me a fortune, but my home would stand no matter how severe the flooding got.
My steps, however, were a problem.
Someone would have to rebuild them, and that someone was me.
I observed the raging waters through my bay window, which jutted out over the sidewalk. If the torrent reached the window, I would be in a great deal of trouble despite my precautions.
No flood in the last hundred years had come anywhere near the top of my steps. This season, it clawed its way three feet over the sidewalk, making it one of the nastier floods since I’d moved to the city. If it continued to worsen, it might even come halfway up to my door, leaving chaos and debris in its wake.
The yearly cleanup, which the residents of Stonecreek turned into a party to encourage everyone to come out and help, would test my patience. Without fail, I would be asked to coordinate my block. The neighbors up the hill from me couldn’t handle the work; as it was, they’d need even more help than I would to escape their homes.
Their lift had been the first thing to be torn away on our street when the first surge hit. Everyone would pitch in to replace it, however. I’d provide both money and a pair of hands .
Neither could get around without wheelchair or walker.
While frugal, I cared about what happened to my neighbors.
The next house up the hill housed a pair of librarians, and we’d be checking in on them to make sure they’d made it, aware they likely got lost in their books without a single care of the world outside their door. The last house in the row, the largest of the lot, buffered everybody from the waters. When I’d first moved in, I’d questioned the home’s architecture, which curved at the end with a yard leading up to the intersecting street.
After my first year living here, I’d realized it had been designed to divert the water around the building and to the street. Every year, the owner replanted his garden along with the token knee-high fence that kept most people out but let people admire the flowers. In the four years since I’d purchased my property, I’d learned his first name: Joel. Nobody knew if he had a last name, as we drew the line at looking up his property record. Everyone on the street placed bets to see who might learn his last name through non-official records, conversations, or from the man himself.
As I hadn’t managed to meet the man face-to-face, I doubted I would learn his name without having to hit up City Hall and look at our street’s public records.
I’d joined the betting solely to keep everyone around me somewhat content with my general existence.
Down the hill were the snakes of our block, and I had no idea why three hell families had all decided to move next to each other. As a general rule, they ignored me and everyone up the hill, too busy fighting with each other to bother with us.
Assuming I could get out of my home when the cleanup began, I would handle making sure everyone else could escape, file the documentation in case someone hadn’t made it, and otherwise begin coordinating the cleanup.
As most of our neighbors across the street were businesses, I wouldn’t have to worry about them all that much. I’d arrange for their replacement steps if needed, have the bills routed to them, and call it a day.
I’d clean their foundations because I could.
As the sole person who’d bothered with owning a power washer, I’d clean all the foundations. The neighbors down the hill would be my prime source of amusement, as without fail, they’d compete with each other to see who could give me the best edible gift for saving them a bill.
I appreciated the gifts.
I couldn’t bake to save my life, and everyone on the street knew it.
I got up, meandered to my kitchen, and armed myself with a fresh cup of coffee spiked with a splash of cream liquor and chocolate. For the next six hours, I would stand watch over the flood, keeping an eye out in case someone had fallen prey to one of nature’s nastier tricks.
There wasn’t much I could do, but I kept a rope by my door with a life preserver, which I’d throw along with a prayer.
Long after night fell and my watch drew to a close, a woman’s scream cut over the flow of water, shrill enough to pierce through even my window. The streetlamps, which were mounted on the roofs of homes rather than installed on posts, did little to penetrate the darkness.
The water’s tendency to throw up spray as it crashed against steps, debris, and the sides of buildings had something to do with that. I abandoned my seat, headed to my door, and pulled it open, flipping on the door light to get a better view of what I had to work with.
Somehow, a three foot span of my steps remained, although the water ate away at them.
I slipped my left hand into the leather loop I had attached to the wall inside my home, which was designed to tighten around my wrist when tugged. I could only hope it worked as intended, else I’d end up a victim like the woman I wanted to rescue. I’d spent two hundred bucks for a professional to make certain the metal clamp embedded into the wall wouldn’t come out without a lot of work, so I held some hope it would keep me tethered to the building, even if I fell.
Upstream, a green glow illuminated the steps two doors up, and in the luminescence, I spotted a figure struggling to cling to the stone. It amazed me she’d managed to hold on at all.
The steps weren’t designed to save victims caught in the water.
As I would only have one chance to rescue the woman, I reached out with my right hand and grabbed for the bell rope attached to the side of every home. I rang it for all I was worth to alert those downstream that someone was in the water .
Then I prepared the life preserver and a prayer, waiting for the moment the water won and dragged her from her haphazard perch. The librarians opened their door, too late to make a grab for the victim struggling to keep her head above water.
The flood dragged the woman my way. With the lift reduced to rubble in the opening volley, along with most everything else on the street, I held some hope she wouldn’t be pummeled by much debris. I dared to ease out onto the ruins of my steps, eyeing her trajectory. The green light followed, and I realized a glowing moth of some sort escorted the woman. To where, I wasn’t sure—likely her grave if I missed.
I went out all the way to where the torrent chewed away at my steps, clutching my left hand line and testing its length. At most, I had six inches to work with. Pushing aside the thought of falling, I treated the woman’s head like a target. If I got the preserver around her, I scored full points and won a life: hers.
I had no idea who I prayed to, but using her head and the moth as my guide, I flung the preserver her way. Down the street, someone had taken up ringing bells, and lights turned on to better illuminate the churning waters.
My preserver smacked into the woman’s face. She grabbed for it, and to my astonishment, the damned thing flipped over her head with one arm firmly wrapped around it. I scrambled to draw in the line, wrapping it around my wrist to make use of my weight and my tether.
When she hit the end of the line, it would hurt like hell, but as long as I didn’t lose my hold, I could haul her in one painful pull at a time .
Aware that every second mattered, I used the precious time before she went past my door to dive into my home, drop to the floor, and brace both feet against the door sill. When I’d asked the contractors to install two braces for my shoes that would work around my door without making the whole damned thing look stupid, they’d laughed at me.
Until a survivor of the floods realized what I meant to do.
Without being able to brace with my feet, the flood and the woman’s weight would have dumped me into the water with her. As it was, the rope dug into my right arm and wrist, numbing my fingers and leaving friction burns I wouldn’t forget anytime soon. To my relief, my tether held.
From my vantage, I had a good view of the woman and the moth. She’d situated herself in the preserver, and she’d discovered the loop of rope I’d installed to give her a handhold, making use of it. Then she reached up, found the first of the knots in the line, and battled the water to pull herself to my steps. The rope swung her towards the foundation, and while not much of my steps remained, I supposed it helped a little with the relentless current.
Inch by painful inch, she hauled herself to my steps. I held my position, my entire body shaking from the effort of keeping the water from reclaiming its prize.
As she drew close, I lost sight of her, but I maintained my pose, waiting for the moment she reached up for help out. Sure enough, a slender hand came into view. Aware it could cost me my life if something went wrong, I slipped my left hand free of its restraint, leaned forward, and clasped her hand in mine.
I bent my knees, and once I had a hold on her with both hands, I used all my strength to shove backwards against the braces. She scrambled up my steps and fell on top of me in the doorway. For a long moment, we both panted while the moth fluttered over us. After catching my breath, I rolled the woman off me and sat up, shaking the rope free from my arm. I got up and peered out my door, looking down the hill. My neighbors leaned out of their doorways. I waved and pointed in my house, hoping they understood I’d gotten more than a little lucky.
My neighbor rang their bell in three short intervals, Stonecreek’s sign all was well.
Usually, the bells fell quiet and left dread in their wake as, one by one, we understood the waters had claimed another life.
I closed my door, breathed in deep, and wondered what I would do with a half-drowned woman and a moth. I’d figure something out.
I always did.
As I had no way of knowing when the flood would subside, I went to work settling my new guests. The moth made itself at home on the lampshade near my bay window. After a quick check of the internet, I determined it was some form of luna moth, although mundane moths didn’t glow. I assumed someone up the hill had a shapeshifting secret they didn’t want others to know about.
According to the internet, mundane luna moths lived roughly a week and didn’t eat at all. A link regarding shapeshifters who could become moths—or creatures similar to moths—stated they’d eat just about anything but had a preference for sugary fare, much like a bee.
As such, I cut up a pear, added a little water to the dish, and set it on the stand near the lamp for the moth to investigate as it wanted. Then I went to deal with my other guest, who would take a great deal more work to reassure and check over. She’d stayed where I’d left her, sitting in the hallway while shivering. I got her to her feet, escorted her to the bathroom, and ran the shower, taking a moment to place my hand against her skin so I could match the temperature.
The last thing I wanted to do was shock someone suffering from hypothermia. “I’m Valerie. The fastest way to warm you up is to start with a cool shower and gradually warm it up. Take your time. I’ll need to stay in here with you to make sure you don’t fall or suffer from other symptoms, but it’s hard to get rescue personnel to the individual houses during the flood. If your teeth are chattering, don’t try to talk.”
I had no idea if her trying to speak with chattering teeth would result in a bitten tongue.
Outside of warming her up in slow increments and getting her dry and tucked into bed, I had no idea what I was supposed to do. If she had any internal injuries, we’d have trouble on our hands. There was no way anyone would be able to get to us. While rescuers might be able to send a helicopter, how would I get rescuers into the house without them risking a plunge into the flood?
I had a courtyard, but I had no idea if it was spacious enough for such an endeavor.
The woman nodded, and to my relief, she started to strip. I took her clothes, promised to wash and dry them while she showered, and suggested that once she got warmed up, she soak in the tub. “Do you have any allergies?”
She shook her head.
“I’ll make you something warm to drink and eat. If you can’t stand reliably, sit in the shower. I’ll come back to warm it up at the right intervals,” I promised before shuffling off to start the washing machine so she’d have something clean to wear. I checked my living room to find the luna moth had moved to the dish and was hard at work eating the offered fruit. Satisfied the shapeshifter would be fine for a while, I hauled the laundry to my washing machine, checked the labels, and breathed a relieved sigh that I could toss in some detergent and let the machine work its magic. Once I had the load started, I went into the kitchen to start the kettle. While that warmed up, I dug out several cans of soup. Fast and hot beat a long wait to get something warm into her.
Once I retrieved my pot, I checked my phone to make certain I wasn’t about to do something lethal to my unexpected guest. Before I had a chance to search the internet, the device rang. The display informed me someone from the police station up the way wanted to speak with me.
“Hello?” I answered, pinning the cell between my shoulder and ear to free up my hands to set up a pot of tea.
“Miss Chester, this is Officer Nathen Williard. We’ve received notice that you have pulled someone out of the flood waters?”
Damn, news spread fast. I supposed one of the neighbors down the way had notified authorities. “Yes, sir. I’ve got her getting warm in the shower, and I’m making her some tea and soup. When I went to get her a drink and start the soup, she was coherent, although I suggested she not say anything until her teeth stopped chattering.”
“Did you start the water cold?”
“I started it at her skin temperature, sir.”
“Good. Do you require any assistance?”
How was I supposed to know? Rather than curse over my ignorance over the situation, I said, “Her teeth were chattering when I started the shower, but she was mobile and able to get out of her clothes without help, and she didn’t seem hurt when she scrambled into my house with some help. But it’s possible she’s got internal injuries. Those waters aren’t kind to anybody.”
“No, they aren’t. We can send a paramedic who is a shapeshifter over to your place if you can open the door for us.”
“I’ve got a moth shapeshifter in here,” I warned, not sure how I’d keep a bird shapeshifter from enjoying a snack of fresh insect.
“I’ll make sure she knows that the moth is not mundane. I would tell the moth to stay away from the entry until the paramedic has a chance to shift just to prevent any unfortunate accidents.”
I could handle that. “Thank you, sir. I’ll go open the door in a moment and lash it so she can fly on in, and I’ll leave the light on. The steps are broken, so I’d rather she land on the floor and damage it than go for a swim.”
“I’ll make sure she knows your steps are out. Were you injured during the rescue?”
I eyed my right arm, which showed some redness from the rope. “Minor rope burn at worst.”
“I’ll have her check you over just in case. Thank you for your work, ma’am. Give us a call on the emergency line if the situation changes.”
I thanked him, hung up, and abandoned my internet search as the paramedic would know her business. After making sure nothing would burn in the short time it took me to get my door open, I returned to the living room. “There’s a bird coming to tend to the woman, so if you could follow me, I’ll take you into a different room in the house.” I strolled over and picked up the dish with the pear. Rather than fly as I expected, the moth went along for the ride.
That would work. As I didn’t want the shapeshifter to feel like a prisoner, I took him to the kitchen and set his dish on the table, which would give plenty of space for everyone to move around without stepping on each other. The moth went back to eating, which wouldn’t last long at its current rate of consumption. Rather than have a hungry moth getting in the way, I retrieved more fruit and set up a buffet before returning to my work.
Within five minutes, an owl hooted and winged into my hallway, landing in the entry to my kitchen.
To my relief, the moth ignored the other shapeshifter.
The snowy owl transformed into a paramedic with a first aid kit. While I questioned the nature of magic and how a bird could become a person, the older woman straightened and asked, “Where is she?”
I pointed in the direction of the hallway leading to my bathroom. “First door on the right, ma’am. Thank you for coming.”
The paramedic hurried off to do her work while I kept the moth company. Aware the floods weren’t over yet, I returned to my post at my bay window, keeping an eye on the churning waters. I should have closed the door, but the reality of the situation made me hesitate.
If I closed the door and someone else needed help, would I make it in time? As I doubted I could get lucky twice, I opted to leave it open, waiting for when exhaustion settled in and someone else would take watch for someone unlucky or ignorant about the lethal waters of Stonecreek.