Page 23 of A Light in the Dark

TWENTY-THREE

That harpy is sneaky.

Three hours after exposure to Elenora’s death cobbler, the first of the symptoms struck in the form of a mild headache. As I valued my life, I wandered the furniture store until I located Lois, Meri, and my boss, who were determined to try every reclining chair in the place. “It seems I have developed a headache.”

Both women looked me over, and Lois hopped up, grabbed my hands, and inspected my skin, which had paled somewhat from exposure to the toxins. “I’m genuinely impressed with your resilience. If this were me? I would have been vomiting and suffering from blinding pain within twenty minutes.”

Joel, who’d developed puppy tendencies and insisted on following me everywhere, snorted. “I am disturbed that she might have been slipping in this crap with your other death cobblers.”

“Ingesting this would be a good way to develop a resistance to it through minute exposure,” the doctor confirmed. “Meri?”

The other woman nodded. “This one is actually more dangerous if it’s handled versus digested. The acids in our stomach break down the toxin, where it reacts aggressively with our skin oils. The contact toxicity is high, and I’m betting you weren’t handling the cobblers for long—or you licked the juices off your fingers promptly. The counteracting compounds are also found in our saliva.”

I raised a brow at that. “I could have eaten it and been better off than just washing my hands?”

“Had you licked it off your fingers and hands, you would have dealt with an upset stomach from the other toxins in the cobbler, but you otherwise would have been fine.”

“That… that harpy is sneaky ,” I informed Joel. “I am going to make her a blanket.”

All the luna moths sighed.

“What?”

My boss patted my shoulder. “You’re supposed to be angry she poisoned you, not trying to thank her with crafted goods.”

“But she gave me a pretty casserole dish, she’s going to make me good death cobbler, and she was really doing something kind in a rather horrific fashion. And as there is no way I’m going to the hospital unless I absolutely must , she gave me a lot of money to play with. That’s true play money. She told me to spend it on crafts.”

“You won’t have to go to the hospital,” Lois assured me, and she lifted her purse. “All the toxins used are friendly in terms of treatment. We don’t even treat the contact toxicity of the primary one unless you start having other symptoms. I’m going to give you the lightest dose I can before we leave the store so Joel sleeps tonight rather than following you around.”

Joel glared at the woman.

“I think he wants to hover tonight,” I informed her, laughing over the insanity. “You can hover at my house if you really want, Joel. I make no promises that you won’t be targeted with commentary involving yourself being a man of the night, servicing damsels in distress, though. Because that is exactly what Elenora expects of you.”

“You’re laughing over this!”

“It’s hilarious. I knew she was getting me sick, but it’s delicious death cobbler, and it turns out she was trying to make sure I survive Stonecreek in a rather unique and creative fashion. I respect that level of dedication to my safety.” While being monitored for surviving her poisoning me wasted some time, I would be able to start working in earnest on checking into the background and history of the refugees who’d applied to work for my company—and make best guesses over who would be at highest risk.

“Safety?” Joel burst out.

My boss lost it, shook his head, got up, and headed towards the front of the store. “I’m going to buy two chairs. If my wife kills me, please remind her that one is for her. She’ll love it.”

“I’ll try to remind her that you were hard to catch, and if she kills you, the next man will probably be even harder to catch,” Meri replied.

“Thanks, I think.”

As I had two chairs, a couch, six bookcases, two end tables, a coffee table, and a monstrous crafting station to buy, I trailed behind him. “I have decided what I’m getting, so I will follow his lead.”

“Come on, Valerie. She could have killed you,” Joel complained.

“But she didn’t. The level of headache isn’t even worth wasting a painkiller on at this stage. The fact she gave me money to deal with the consequences is saying a lot about her ethics. Is she possibly insane? Yes. Did she mean well? Also yes. I’m not against people doing things like that, although being used in a twisted science experiment wasn’t something I expected to experience.” I offered Joel a smile. “It’s sweet you’re so upset over this. I’m not worried about it. I mean, if we get any refugees moving in on our street, I’m going to suggest that Elenora get consent from her target before starting her plan to feed them death cobbler. But I’ve been promised a piece of cobbler a month, and so help me, if you come between me and my cobbler, we’re going to have words!”

“You are not the first person I’ve met with an obsession with strangleberry,” Lois admitted. “Also, please ask her where she’s sourcing these things. I’d like to make certain some adventurous people I know don’t find out where she’s getting it.”

I knew exactly where she was getting her poison supply, as she’d told me herself several times. “She’s going down to the flood plains and drainage zones during harvest season and freezing it.”

“Of course she is,” Joel muttered.

A thought occurred to me, and puzzled, I got out my phone, checked through my contacts, and found Elenora’s number, which I’d added from my phone book at home. I dialed, put the cell to my ear, and waited.

“Hello?” Elenora answered.

“Hey, it’s Valerie. I had an odd question for you.”

“What do you need, you sweet thing?”

“What made you start making your cobbler for the new folks in town?”

“Oh, aren’t you just a curious little thing. Why, them donkeys up the hill like telling the new folks to pick the berries, and they’ve been doing that for some years now to weed out the weak. Every street with sense has someone passing around cobbler to those they like if they’re new. But if you’re curious about the berries, just head up the hill and act like you don’t belong. Someone’ll be by to suggest you go picking down there during the season. Us cobbler makers do our best to clean out all the known bushes, but it’s public land, so we can’t just kill the lot of them. We would if we could. But there ain’t no laws about picking them—we just can’t remove them. So, we pick all the things we need for our cobbler and leave the rest for the new folks, bless them.”

A chill went through me. “How long has this been going on?”

“Oh, I’d say about twelve years now, ever since that Oustenhaus fellow started campaigning for leadership. I remember that quite well. The first part of his campaign had him suggesting we do more harmonious living off the land, and that we should all strive to go see nature—and pick the berries as we went.”

“And how’d you learn to make the cobbler?”

“Oh, now, that would be telling secrets, but I’ll say this much. Us old farts know about the berries—and anyone we like has had our cobbler enough, because some of them berries can’t be distinguished from some that are in the grocery store, not until you take a bite and find them to be a bit sweeter than normal. And those sweet ones are the ones that’ll kill you if you eat a pint.”

“Has this happened before?”

“If you want to do some digging, I recommend you make some calls to education centers outside of Stonecreek and ask about the Red Death here about a hundred or so years back. You’ll learn a lot. Now, I’ll let you go. How’s that head treating you?”

“I just have a mild headache,” I reported.

“Then you’ll be good. Have that pretty country boy tuck you in tonight and drink plenty of liquids. You’ll be fine. And if you happen to know anyone new, make them a piece of that first cobbler recipe I got you, you hear me?”

Madeline. My worries grew, and I said, “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind if I came over and made a batch with you since I can’t bake all that well?”

“I can help you learn how to make cobbler, don’t you worry. Come on over when you have some time, and we’ll whip up a good batch together. You take care now, you hear?”

“Thanks, Elenora.”

The woman hung up on me, and I spent a long moment staring at my phone before sending Roger a text to suggest that they do a toxicity report on the bodies they’d found to determine if there was any evidence of poisoning, and then I gave him the entire rundown of the berries that Elenora included in her death cobbler.

A moment later, Roger confirmed they’d look into it, as they still had most of the bodies in the morgue, frozen for the investigation.

With that done, I regarded Joel with wide eyes. “You ever hear about something called the Red Death from a hundred or so years ago?”

“No. Why? I know some people I can ask, though.”

I wondered if news of such a thing would reach outside of the city—and if the powers in control of Stonecreek at that time had permitted the media to do its job. “That’s the reason why this town has a cobbler recipe, and if we want to learn more, we should go read about the Red Death. Also, they started making the cobbler when Mayor Oustenhaus started his campaign for office. I’m guessing someone remembered this Red Death and read the writing on the wall. Elenora recommends that we do our research outside of Stonecreek.”

“But why not have everyone do it, then?” Joel muttered, and he scowled.

“Because we grow up knowing what berries are toxic, we know not to go picking in the flood plains, and we double check for evidence of the wrong berries hitting the market when we go shopping,” Meri replied, and her face paled. “It happens, and all we do is move the berry basket aside. If there was a massive stocking of them, the only people who’d get caught would be those who haven’t grown up here all their lives. The tourists, transients, refugees, and those who don’t live right on the outskirts of Stonecreek would be hit hard. Most of those berries only grow right in the flood plains around here.”

“And by the time someone thought to complain or tell store staff the berries are wrong, a lot of people will be eating them and dying,” I guessed.

“Unless you’ve been eating that cobbler frequently, yeah. That’s correct. Strangleberry is one of the more dangerous ones, because by the time you realize you’ve been poisoned, you’re choking and can’t get help easily.”

“But it’s delicious.”

Joel sighed and glared at me yet again. “It’s deadly.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so fixated on this whole poison thing. I’m going to go to her house, and I’m going to eat my poison warm out of the oven.” I prodded his chest with a finger. “And you can’t stop me.”

Lois laughed, dug into her purse, and handed me a bottle of pills, which she rattled. “If you eat more than you can handle, take one and give me a call. A mild headache is acceptable. Any other symptoms are not. If you take one without having been poisoned, go to your neighbor and ask for a few berries to pop, and that’ll solve that problem. Otherwise, induce vomiting. It’s not good for you if you haven’t had one of the toxins it addresses.”

I accepted the bottle, smiled at Joel, and put it in my purse. “Lois understands my needs.”

“Lois,” Joel complained.

“It could be worse. She could like gutbursters.”

“Gutbursters?” I asked.

The doctor nodded. “It’s a tiny blue berry that grows in Mirage. You either live or you die when you eat it, and it has a nasty habit of causing hemorrhaging of the intestines. One berry has a twenty-five percent chance of killing you. Two will probably kill you. Three will kill you. Nobody plays with gutbursters. Mirage’s government pays five thousand dollars per bush found so they can destroy it. It’s a ten thousand dollar penalty to be in possession of a gutburster berry—per berry. The only exception to this is if the berry is bagged per the reporting rules and you are on route to the police station to turn it in. You have to call the police upon discovery, notify them you have a berry for confirmation, and wait at the bush if the bush is accessible by vehicle; otherwise you’re permitted to carry it to the nearest road. Gutbursters are treated seriously there.”

“I’m going to pass on trying gutbursters. I think I’ll stick to strangleberry.”

“You have a good relationship with strangleberry, and monthly exposure will likely mean you won’t react to it at all, even if you decide to knock back a pint.”

“Please don’t knock back a pint of strangleberry,” Joel begged.

I laughed at him. “I will limit my strangleberry consumption to my share of cobbler once a month. But if you come between me and my share of cobbler, we’re going to fight.”

Joel sighed. “Just don’t grow it in your garden, okay?”

“I can promise that I will not grow strangleberry in my garden, but if you go after my nightshade plants, we’re definitely going to have a fight.”

“Your tomatoes are safe,” he promised.

My headache went away after an hour, so while I kept the bottle of pills Lois had given me, she told me not to take it and to enjoy my status as relatively impervious to Stonecreek’s unique perils.

The pills didn’t make me impervious to shit drivers who failed to understand that night store parking lots weren’t a place for them to play and treat their vehicles like toys. In good news for me, I comprehended the idiot had lost control and spun out, and that unless I moved, I would be in a world of hurt—or dead. As sidestepping wasn’t an option due to the parked cars flanking me, I went the one way I could: up.

The next time I went home, I would thank my mother for assuming all little girls wanted to be gymnasts, as her insistence I take lessons until I turned eighteen served me well. I treated the oncoming car like I would a vault, flipped over it, and landed with relative grace, although I would have lost points for failing to stick the landing and neglecting to throw my arms in the air like some idiot. The vehicle, a rusty banger, plowed into the parked cars, sending metal, glass, and plastic flying.

In good news for everyone, the idiot had missed Joel’s SUV, and my boss had been parked on the far side of him.

The doctor and paramedic had come in a sporty car, which was parked several rows down.

In good news for the driver of the rusty banger, Joel, Lois, and Meri jumped into action. Meri handled the calling emergency services portion of the work while Joel and Lois converged on the driver’s side, which had slammed into the other vehicles with enough force I hoped he or she would survive.

I’d been so busy jumping I hadn’t gotten a look at the person.

My boss came over and asked, “Are you okay? ”

I did a head to toe check, and as there was nothing left to do, I bowed. “It seems if you vault enough times, it literally does become muscle memory and can be used in questionable situations involving probably drunk drivers. Because that’s the only realistic reason I can think of for someone pulling donuts in a furniture store parking lot.”

“I’m grateful you seem to have been trained in the art of gymnastics.” He regarded the crashed vehicle with wide eyes. “If you want off work Monday, ask. If you feel like working from home, I’ll authorize it. But I’m not sure you’re going to be able to recover from this with just Saturday and Sunday to work with.”

I waved off his concern. “I’m fine.”

“Valerie, you’re wearing dress shoes. I don’t even understand why you aren’t on the asphalt with a snapped ankle right now. You must have a sprain or something wrong with you after that.”

I stared at my feet, and on second thought, it amazed me I’d stuck the landing as well as I had when wearing kitten heels. “Had I been wearing a skirt, that would have ended in an entirely different fashion. I would have cleared the car but landed on my face rather than my feet.”

“I am banning skirts on any outings to furniture stores in the future,” he informed me in a solemn tone.

I considered his edict, regarded the trashed vehicles, and nodded my head in agreement. “I’m going to look for a dressy pair of shoes that looks to be fancy and appropriate for hopeful attorneys, but in reality, they’re a gym shoe suitable for all physical activities.”

“Just bring a pair of gym shoes into work and stash them at your desk, that way, whenever you leave the general safety of our office building, you are prepared for anything.” He sighed, took a picture of the crash with his phone, and shook his head. “I had no idea you’re a gymnast.”

“Little girls who grew up in my town were, by default, gymnasts. That is what little girls in my town were useful for. We had to be pretty, agile, and graceful. That means we’re gymnasts. I understand the agile and graceful thing, but I still don’t understand how doing gymnastics makes a girl pretty. It definitely did keep us fit, though. But no girl in town escaped being a gymnast. My mother is a gymnast. My grandmothers? Both gymnasts. Every girl ever to enter my family is a gymnast. It’s so normal for us I forgot it’s something not everyone does.”

“Which explains why you didn’t peep about it. When you’re raised in such a way where all girls are gymnasts, that’s the default so why bring it up?”

I nodded. “That’s correct.”

My boss stared at the wreckage, and I joined him. In what had to count as a miracle, Joel had managed to get the driver side door open and was conversing with the driver, who felt it was a good idea to get out of the vehicle and attempt to stagger away. Joel blinked, more like an owl than a self-respecting luna moth.

The younger man had blood on his face from a cut across his forehead, although I wasn’t sure what he’d cut himself on. His windshield had shattered into a bazillion pieces, and it clung to its frame. “I’m guessing he doesn’t feel like he needs to stick around for the paramedics.”

“Or for the reckless driving charge,” my boss said, shaking his head.

Unfortunately for the driver, a cop must have been loitering down the street, as sirens and flashing lights announced the arrival of law enforcement. An ambulance followed, and as I had no desire to dodge other vehicles, I went towards the building, standing on the sidewalk nearby.

My boss followed, and he tracked the driver, who staggered about this way and that. “I suspect we’re about to get some prime evening entertainment.”

“I’m just glad the idiot missed Joel’s SUV. I haven’t known him long, but he loves that SUV.”

“That would be an understatement. I remember when he got it. It was custom ordered and took six months to arrive. He did the excited puppy dance in the dealership lot. Most of the flutter showed up, as he went at night to get the keys. I was a human escort, as someone needed to drive him there. My wife was one of the many luna moths loitering on the roof.”

“You all glow. You can’t hide.”

“He knew they were there. He yelled at us while waiting for his pickup window. We are insufferable worrywarts, and he is perfectly capable of picking up his baby unattended.”

I laughed at the thought of a bunch of luna moths babysitting Joel. “How did he end up leading the flutter, anyway?”

“After he founded his company, he began hiring luna moth shifters. Some were already in flutters, some weren’t, and the ones that weren’t pressured him into founding a flutter since he was the owner of the company hiring them. The ones who were already part of a flutter eventually joined his—one such flutter actually all went to him, because the leader of that flutter was tired of herding cats. And don’t let Joel trick you. We’re like a bunch of glowing cats. ”

“As evidenced by the thirty-three of you who got skunked on my roses.”

“We have been asked to limit our indulgence to once a week,” my boss complained. “He’s selfish.”

The so-called selfish Joel attempted to keep the ridiculously drunk driver out of the way of cars, resulting in the driver squealing over how he was being repressed by a rich man. The cops got out of the patrol car, and the squealing turned into yelling over how it wasn’t fair that people had parked their cars in his way.

During one of the brief moments the man stopped shouting, Joel said, “He almost hit a young woman and plowed his car into parked vehicles. The woman dodged injury through vaulting over his vehicle.”

Then, to my dismay, Joel gestured in my direction.

Little amused me more than observing a drunk attempt to flee from the police. Joel stuck out his foot, caught the driver by the ankle, and dodged the man’s flailing arms as he thumped down to the asphalt. The police jumped on the fellow, and after a brief but fierce struggle, during which the driver thought it was a good idea to bite an officer, they restrained him in cuffs.

He screamed all the while about how he was being repressed. A comment or two about dumb broads too stupid to stay out of the way infuriated Joel, but Meri and Lois intervened, dragging him to where I waited with my boss.

A second cop car arrived, and after a few minutes, the new ones headed our way, whistling over the destruction. “You folks all right?”

I nodded. “The cars and the driver were the only casualties of this event, and the driver seems to be rather… lively. ”

We stared, where the other pair of cops struggled with getting the screaming man to cooperate. Another ambulance showed up, and the technicians joined the fray.

I wished them well.

“What’s this about the driver almost hitting one of you ladies?”

I raised my hand. “That was me. I saw him coming, and I was near the cars, so I went over his vehicle since I had nowhere else to go. I took gymnastics until I turned eighteen. I vaulted over the vehicle to safety. I’m fine.” I stared at the wrecked vehicles. “It appears the driver was trying to spin his car, lost control, and smashed into this row of parked cars.”

When it became clear the drunk fool wasn’t going to cooperate, two of the paramedics headed our way. I endured a rapid series of questions, and the pair of men insisted on checking my feet and ankles for injury. I spent almost an hour retelling the same story ten times, having my feet wiggled this way and that, and otherwise undergoing scrutiny regarding everything I’d done from arriving at the store to the moment the cops arrived.

The idea that someone would go to a night store to buy furniture confused them for some reason.

Once they were satisfied, I gave the police my contact information.

They left us, and after a few moments of puzzlement, I stared at my boss. “Why were they so interested in why I was buying furniture? What does that have to do with a drunk driver plowing into a car?”

“I honestly have no idea why they were hassling you about buying furniture. I also don’t understand why they felt it was relevant to the driver’s poor choices.”

Joel grumbled something under his breath, crossed his arms over his chest, and directed his glare at the pavement, although he shot dirty looks at the cops more than a few times.

“Joel,” Lois warned. “Do not even think about doing anything to Carlen.”

Wait. They knew the cops by name? “Which one is Carlen?”

“The tall one who kept asking about why you were shopping is Carlen, and he is in our flutter,” Meri explained.

Oh. A few possibilities came to mind, and I suspected the cop had been more angling about why I’d been at the furniture store with members of his flutter. “Ah. I understand. I’m an interloping female who is not a luna moth.”

Lois snickered and nodded. “And he was fishing for why you were with us, as there’s nothing on the grapevine about any new members of the flutter, and Joel doesn’t usually gather more than one or two of us at a time with someone who isn’t officially associated with us. He knows better than to ask us while Joel’s here, but I’m sure we’ll have a visitor soon enough.”

“Would inviting him to visit my rose garden help? With his job, he might need a good round with my roses.”

The luna moths all laughed. Joel relaxed, heaved a pained sigh, and headed over to pay a visit to the cops.

“I’ll go with him,” Meri said, and she hurried to catch up.

Lois snickered, shaking her head at the man’s antics. “Meri might be able to keep him contained. Joel’s always like this when something goes wrong, so try not to worry about it, Valerie. He’ll be back to normal tomorrow, although you might end up with a luna moth hanging out at your window all night.”

“I already warned him that luna moths who visit after hours are turned into nightlights and kept for release in the morning. Wise luna moths will leave my home before I’m ready for bed, else they’re held hostage until I get up for the day. I sleep in on Saturdays and Sundays. This is a sacred ritual.”

My boss laughed. “Your sacred sleep in ritual will be safe, I promise. After the day you’ve had, we’ll do our overtime for recruitment tomorrow. Hopefully, most companies will be too busy attending the fair to reach out, email, and start the process. My bosses won’t be happy with me for making them work overtime, but if we’re going to grab the good refugees, we need to act quickly. Joel might try to edge in on my action.”

I laughed at the thought of the flutter fighting with each other to hire the best employees. “Honestly, as long as either Joel or our company hires, I’m fine with that. It means they’ll be with good employers either way. But as soon as he stops playing with the cops, I’ll get him to take me home so I can set up my work laptop and go over resumes and unwind before tomorrow. I have to receive my furniture in the afternoon and learn how to make death cobbler in the morning. I’ll be working on the resumes between. At the very least, I can look up their bonus status before I go to bed. After this, I will not be ready to nap. Remember: any luna moths that enter my home tonight do not leave until morning.”

Lois headed in the direction of Joel, Meri, and the cops, waving her hand. “I’ll make sure Joel understands he won’t be leaving your home tonight. I’ll make him get a move on, else we really will be here all night long.”

I eyed the trashed cars, wondering who owned them and why nobody had come out of the furniture store to claim the vehicles. “If I had heard a huge crash, I would have come running to see if it was my car that was destroyed. Or at least rubberneck.”

My boss shrugged. “They might be at one of the neighboring night stores. They all share this lot, and nobody worries if you park at one and go to the other. They could be at any one of the stores near here. Just don’t screw up your sleep schedule. I know mine’s going to be a mess, but I’m going to try to get as many of these resumes scanned or photographed as possible before heading home and confessing to my wife about my sins.”

“I’ll try my best, but I make no promises. After this? I’m going to be wired, and I’m going to eat my feelings. They’re stressed feelings. But in good news, I survived that asshole’s idiocy. I’m just glad he didn’t start screaming until after he almost hit me.”

“Personally, I wish he hadn’t almost hit you. I thought my soul was going to flee my body for a moment. Do you think I can get away with telling my wife that I bought the chairs to cope with the accident?”

While I doubted it, I replied, “It’s worth a shot. Good luck.”