The Firefly Hours (A Silas Sharp Metaphysical Mystery): Chapter 5

 

Fireflies Forest Art
by Elizabeth Guilford

Chapter 5 – First Sighting

Twilight is one of those things everyone agrees exists but almost no one can define. Morning has obvious ambitions. Night knows exactly what it wants. Twilight, on the other hand, hesitates. It lingers. It negotiates. It isn't a destination so much as a conversation between two certainties. Most people think it lasts twenty or thirty minutes.

They're wrong. Twilight lasts exactly as long as it needs to.

I arrived on Laurel Lane just before seven-thirty carrying nothing more exotic than a notebook, a flashlight, and a folding lawn chair I found in my closet. Professional investigators rarely look as impressive as television would have you believe.

By eight o'clock, the neighborhood had settled into its evening routine. Sprinklers clicked lazily across emerald lawns. Garage doors rumbled open and closed. Three houses down, a father played a game of catch his son like a scene from a feel-good movie. Someone's radio drifted through an open window, playing a song I'd heard a hundred times but couldn't quite identify. Children pedaled bicycles in slow circles, their parents occasionally calling reminders to be home before dark. Everything looked perfectly ordinary. Which, in my line of work, often meant reality was preparing to become difficult.

I unfolded the chair beneath one of the young maple trees bordering the neighborhood park. A few curious glances came my way. Who could blame them? A strange dude in a lawn chair holding a flashlight and a notebook didn’t exactly scream Trust me!

One little boy rode past on his bicycle, slowed just long enough to ask, "You're waiting, aren't you?"

"I suppose I am."

He nodded as though that settled the matter.

"Don't fall asleep."

Before I could ask why, he was halfway down the block.

The first firefly appeared at 8:17. One tiny pulse of glowing yellow suspended above the grass. Then another. Then five more. Within minutes, dozens floated beneath the trees like tiny lanterns searching for something they'd misplaced. I'd always liked fireflies. Everyone does. They're one of nature's few special effects. Across the park, several children stopped what they were doing. No pointing or calling out. They simply recognized the presence of the fireflies. As though someone had quietly announced that a familiar program was about to begin.

One by one, they drifted toward the tree line. No adults seemed to notice.

The change began so gradually I almost convinced myself I was imagining it. The evening grew quieter like the calm before a symphony begins. The radio continued playing somewhere behind me but sounded further away. Its melody stretched thin, as though traveling a much greater distance than a few backyards should have required. Even the breeze felt different. Cooler. Slower. The air had acquired the peculiar stillness that usually arrives just before a summer thunderstorm, except there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

I checked my watch. Only three minutes had passed. It felt like fifteen.

Colors changed next. Not enough to notice immediately but enough to doubt yourself. The grass lost some of its richness. The blue recycling bins lining the curb became slightly muted. Brick houses took on the faded quality of old photographs left too long in the sun. Everything remained recognizable. Everything also seemed to belong to itself just a little less than it had a moment earlier.

I found myself blinking, my eyes kept insisting the world needed adjusting.

The children had reached the trees. None of them crossed into the woods. They simply stood there watching. Watching what, I couldn't tell.

Lily noticed me. She offered a small wave; an acknowledgment that I'd finally shown up for a meeting everyone else had been attending for years. She pointed toward the fireflies. I looked. At first I saw nothing unusual. Then I realized something. They weren't drifting randomly anymore. They seemed to gather in loose clusters, blinking together in slow, deliberate rhythms.

Like conversations. No. Like directions. I scribbled the thought into my notebook, then immediately crossed it out. It sounded ridiculous.

A laugh echoed somewhere beyond the trees. Unmistakably happy, joyous. Several children smiled. None of them moved. The lure of the laughter beckoned to me like a siren’s song. I remembered the first rule.

Don't follow the laughing.

My feet remained exactly where they were. Another laugh answered the first. This one farther away. Or perhaps closer. Distance had become an unreliable witness.

A golden retriever trotted across the park carrying a tennis ball. Halfway to its owner, it stopped. Its ears lifted alertly. For several seconds it stared into the trees, tail wagging uncertainly. Then, with a quiet whine, it turned around and walked back the way it had come. Animals are frequently more sensible than people.

The fireflies blinked again. This time every one of them flashed at once. Laurel Lane seemed to inhale. Physically, literally, not metaphorically. Like a deep sigh. Leaves trembled. Window curtains shifted inward. The air pressed gently against my face before releasing me. For the briefest instant, I had the impossible sensation that something had arrived from just beyond ordinary noticing.

My pulse quickened. Nothing happened. Everything happened. I couldn't decide which.

Then someone spoke my name just off to my left. Close enough to hear but still far enough that I couldn’t place the direction.

"Silas."

I turned. The park was empty. Children still watched the trees. Parents still chatted on driveways. The basketball still bounced. Was I the only one who had heard it?

"Silas."

Again.

The voice was warm, familiar. A voice I hadn't heard in almost twenty years. One I knew with impossible certainty. I felt the blood leave my face. Because the man calling my name had been dead since I was twenty-three.

And I had carried his casket myself.

*****

My new comedic sci-fi novel, Someone Else's Book Club, is available on my website or through Amazon!