The Firefly Hours (A Silas Sharp Metaphysical Mystery): Chapter 2

 

Where the Fireflies Go
by JD Slayton

Chapter 2 – Laurel Lane

Neighborhoods have personalities beyond what real estate agents write about in glossy brochures. They prefer words like walkable, family-friendly, and great schools. I'm talking about temperament. Some neighborhoods are suspicious. Some are lonely. Some spend decades pretending they're still twenty years younger than they really are. My neighborhood growing up was a rabid bobcat that needed to be put down.

Laurel Lane felt pleasantly forgettable in the way a movie does playing in the background while you fold laundry or drink to forget your problems.

The subdivision had been built about fifteen years earlier, during that era when developers discovered three floor plans were apparently enough for an entire neighborhood. Every house was large enough to suggest success without quite achieving elegance. Stone facades gave way to vinyl siding around the corners where no one was expected to look. Three-car garages occupied more visual real estate than the front doors. The streets curved just enough to discourage speeding while making every block resemble the last.

It was the architectural equivalent of saying, Perfect credit score.

The trees hadn't yet grown into themselves. Young oaks and maples lined the sidewalks in careful intervals, each one staked upright years ago and now just beginning to cast enough shade to offer the illusion of relief on a hot summer day. The landscaping looked professionally maintained but personally unloved. Every lawn was green. Every mailbox stood straight. Every flower bed contained the same handful of shrubs arranged with mathematical precision. Nothing hinted that one family might be stranger than the next. The whole subdivision looked assembled from a catalog titled Comfortable Upper Middle Class, Volume Two.

I parked my red 1967 Pontiac Ventura beneath one of the still-growing oaks and rolled down the window. It looked wildly out of place among the sterile SUVs, minivans, and hybrid sedans that lined the driveways. The air smelled like freshly cut grass because of course it did. Somewhere nearby, someone was grilling hamburgers. A garage door hummed open. A basketball bounced rhythmically against pavement. Children laughed up the street.

If suburban normalcy had a showroom floor, Laurel Lane could have sold tickets. Which, in my experience, meant something strange was hiding in plain sight.

Lily wasn't home.

Her mother answered the door looking apologetic. "She's at the park."

"The day after disappearing for an hour?"

"We tried grounding her,” Elaine gave a helpless shrug.

"And?"

"She asked if she could be grounded tomorrow instead because everyone was meeting today."

"Everyone?"

"The neighborhood kids."

That was enough to redirect my afternoon.

The neighborhood park occupied the center of the subdivision like someone had thoughtfully left childhood there for safekeeping. It was the usual setup: a faded jungle gym, two swings, one very tired-looking merry-go-round. In the center was a basketball court that had surrendered years ago to skateboarders. There were perhaps fifteen children scattered across the park climbing, playing tag, chasing one another with the kind of energy possessed only by children and golden retrievers.

Lily spotted me first. She waved as though we'd been expecting one another.

"You must be Mr. Sharp."

"I've been called worse."

She grinned. "You don't look like a detective."

"What does a detective look like?”

She considered this. “I dunno. Nancy Drew?”

I liked her immediately.

We sat on a bench while the other children continued playing.

"You gave your parents quite a scare."

"I know."

"Were you trying to?"

“No!” She looked horrified. “I would never do that!”

“I know,” I said in my most reassuring voice. “That’s something I used to do my parents. You’re too nice of a young lady to do that.”

“Did you not like your parents?”

“That’s another story for another time,” I said and quickly steered the conversation back to her disappearance. "So where did you go?"

She frowned—not because she didn't know the answer, but because she couldn't understand why adults kept asking.

"I told them."

I consulted my notebook to confirm her story.

"You stayed after the fireflies came out,” I said. "What does that mean?"

She tilted her head. "You really don't know?"

"I'm afraid not. Didn’t grow up around fireflies. But, again, another story for another time.”

For a moment she looked almost sympathetic. Adults often underestimate how much children pity them.

"We're not supposed to explain it,” she said. The calmness in her voice chilled my spine.

"Why not?"

"Because grown-ups always make it weird."

I couldn't argue with that.

A baseball rolled to our feet. One of the boys jogged over to retrieve it.

"Who's he?" he asked Lily.

"A detective."

The boy looked impressed.

"Cool." He turned to me. "Are you here because of yesterday?"

"I am,” I said to him.

"You don't have to worry." His voice, too, was calm in an unnerving way that actually caused more worry.

"I don't?"

He shook his head with complete confidence. "She came back."

"As far as you're concerned, that's the important part?" I asked him.

"Well...yeah." He looked genuinely confused by the question. "Lily always comes back."

The other children had begun drifting toward us now like curious gawkers who have stumbled across something odd in a barn. I sensed no fear or apprehension from them. One little girl who was maybe eight years old was the first to ask.

"Does he know?"

Lily laughed. "I don't think he does."

Another boy sighed dramatically and said, "Adults never know."

His announcement kind of hurt my feelings. If he knew all the things I’ve seen, the cases I’ve worked, he’d know I’m not like other adults. I decided honesty was my best strategy.

"Know what?" I asked.

The children exchanged glances. Again, calmly, with pity. Also very unnerving. Finally, the smallest among them—a freckled boy missing his two front teeth—answered as though he were explaining something obvious.

"About the Firefly Hours."

Silence. The other children simply nodded as if this were a statement of fact with which agreed. Like he had simply pointed out it was the middle of summer and it was hot. I looked from one face to another.

"What are the Firefly Hours?"

The freckled boy blinked.

"You know..."

He pointed toward the tree line where the first hints of evening would eventually arrive.

"...after the fireflies come out."

He frowned.

"Everybody knows about the Firefly Hours."

*****

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