Page 65 of Claimed By the Mothman

They kept working.

“Are you planning on coming to the community potluck next week?” Carol asked.

She didn’t look up from her pruning, but the tilt of her head said she already knew the answer.

“I…” He hesitated. The words caught somewhere behind his tongue.

Of course he wanted to. He was not a social creature by nature, but the potlucks were comforting. There was something about the noise, the overlapping conversations, thebeing expected. Community. Caring. Shared food and strange customs and belonging, even if Mr. Caracas was always grumbling in the corner about “the corruption of spice blends.”

But the thought of Nell being there and potentiallynotwanting to see him knotted something in his chest.

“She may not wish to see me,” he said finally.

“She might not,” Carol replied gently. “Or she might.”

She rested her shears against her shoulder. “But Sig—you have to choose for yourself, too. You can’t keep pulling yourself back just because you’re afraid she won’t meet you halfway. You’re part of this community. That was true before she arrived, and it’ll still be true no matter what happens.”

He glanced at her, surprised by the quiet certainty in her voice.

“There are many of us who care about you, you know,” she added, as if it were obvious. “Even if you do prune your mint like a barbarian.”

Then she winked. “Just don’t bring another salad like you did at the dinner party.”

Sig huffed, but something uncoiled in his chest.

He had been so focused on Nell. So consumed by the bond and the fear and the wanting that he hadn’t realized how far the rest of the building had slipped to the edges of his awareness.

The way Theo’s parents had slipped him a Tupperware of dumplings after a hard week without asking questions. The time Thess had enchanted his gardening gloves to “help the echinacea feel heard.” Orell inviting him to test one of her experimental looms that responded to scent memory. Even Mr. Lyle, who once silently left a replacement spade outside his apartment door after Sig snapped his in a fit of quiet frustration.

They had been there. They had always been there.

They are part of me as well,he thought.

Sig moved to the far box and crouched low. His claws curling around a branch he had tucked there days ago, one that had fallen from the nearby black locust tree.

He pulled it free. It was the right shape. Slightly curved. Pale where he’d peeled the bark away in idle moments. He ran one claw along the inner edge and thought of her hair, how it had gleamed in the soft light of Jem and Hollis’ apartment.

He would carve it tonight. Slowly. Carefully. It would be useful. Something she could hold. Something she might accept.

“I will attend the potluck,” he said finally, more to the branch than to Carol.

Carol smiled. “Good boy. Now, prune your sage. It’s sulking.”

—

The corner store had a basket near the register labeledSALE—50¢ OR BEST OFFER, which meant everything in it was cursed, expired, or mildly enchanted. Nell flipped through it with idle fingers while Goldie hunted down binder clips in the stationery aisle.

“Remind me again why we’re here buying supply closet refills when we need to finish sorting the archival manifests by sigh frequency?” Nell called over her shoulder.

Goldie’s voice floated back. “Because I find errands to be restorative. You’re welcome.”

Nell rolled her eyes and kept digging. A sticky deck of playing cards. A melted wax frog. A promotional pen that whispered tax advice. And then—no. It was terrible. It was perfect. She fished it from the basket, hardly believing her eyes.

It was a round, cheap magnet, designed for tourists who descended on Bellwether like it was the holy land of cryptid groupies. A stylized moth stretched across a crescent moon, complete with sparkles and embossed silver foil.

It was dumb. Truly dumb. Gloriously awful.

She turned it over in her hand, and the laughter sat warm in her chest, unexpected and real.