The Firefly Hours (A Silas Sharp Metaphysical Mystery): Chapter 29

 

Chapter 29 – The Fireflies Depart

Time, having been inconvenienced for several days, resumed its responsibilities without complaint.

The clocks started first. Arthur's pocket watch ticked once. The grandfather clock inside the Collins house chimed eight times. Car engines turned over. Cell phones awakened beneath piles of forgotten jackets. Somewhere down the block, a microwave began blinking 12:00 with the hope that maybe someone in the house knew how to set its time. Laurel Lane seemed to be wandering back to whatever passes for normalcy.

The few remaining fireflies drifted lower. Simply wandering through the humid morning air. Ordinary insects once more. Whatever they had always been.

Walter stood at the edge of the woods. His hands rested quietly in his pockets. He looked lighter now that he was no longer capturing memories in jars. Happiness hadn’t arrived for Walter yet. Grief doesn't disappear overnight.

"I dreamed about them.” He spoke without taking his eyes off the trees.

"Margaret and Emily?"

He nodded. "They were building the birdhouse."

"Did they finish it?"

"I woke up before they painted it,” he said with a slight smile in his voice.

The woods had changed. The impossible neighborhood still stood beyond the trees. Only now it looked like a town seen from across a valley. Danny Peterson stood near the basketball court. George leaned against a fence. Evelyn sat on the porch with her paperback open across her knees. They all seemed to know. Arthur removed his cap. He told me he had never been a particularly religious man. But some moments require respect more than explanation.

Danny walked toward us with the easy confidence of a fourteen-year-old who no longer had anywhere else to be. He stopped at the edge of the clearing.

"I think it's time,” he said.

Arthur swallowed hard. "I suppose it is."

"You can tell my mom,” Danny said, then smiled. “But I think she already knows."

I watched Danny has he looked toward his house, a quiet goodbye on his face.

George tipped an imaginary hat. "Good seeing you again."

Arthur managed a smile. "You too."

One by one the lost residents gathered. The woman hanging laundry folded the final towel. The mechanic wiped his hands on an old shop rag. Children abandoned a half-finished kickball game. Somewhere a screen door closed with a clack. Someone else laughed at a joke we'd never hear. They were travelers catching the last train home.

Evelyn approached me. She still carried the paperback beneath one arm.

"I suppose this is goodbye."

"I've been wondering who you are,” I said to her. “Will you tell me?"

She considered it. "I'd rather let you wonder."

“That’s awfully mysterious of you.”

She looked toward the woods, a mischievous grin on her kind face. She glanced toward the eastern sky where sunlight filtered through the branches.

"Someday you'll recognize me."

I opened my mouth to ask another question.

She gently shook her head.

"Not yet,” she said. Then she did something unexpected. She stepped forward and embraced me.

"Thank you, Silas."

"For what?"

"For reminding all of us.” She stepped back. “That memories don't disappear when we stop living inside them."

She turned and walked toward the others. Another resident heading home.

The fireflies gathered above the clearing. Thousands of them now. They circled slowly overhead. Then, as the morning sun climbed higher, they rose until individual lights became impossible to distinguish. After a moment, the sky simply looked like sky again.

The impossible neighborhood wakened from something like a dream you’ll think about for a solid week but never fully remember. The details will be fuzzy around the edges. The basketball court disappeared first. Then the porches and the streets. The voices lingered longest. Random sounds popped around Laurel Lane. Laughter. A bicycle bell. Someone calling children in for supper. One final screen door.

Then, only woods were left.

Walter exhaled. "They're gone."

"They’re home," Arthur said quietly.

Walter looked at him. “I think you’re right.”

By late afternoon, county surveyors had arrived to inspect the woods. Television crews packed their equipment. Parents called children home for dinner. The neighborhood resumed the difficult work of becoming ordinary. There would be stories, of course. Exaggerations. Arguments over what people thought they'd seen. Memory immediately began doing what memory always does. Editing.

Calico stood beside me at the entrance to Willow Lane.

"I've been thinking,” she said.

"Aren’t you always?”

She smiled. "I don't think the Firefly Hours were ever trying to trap anyone."

"What then?"

"I think they were waiting."

"For Walter?"

"For all of us." She looked back toward the quiet woods. "Waiting for someone to remember the difference between holding on and refusing to let go."

I nodded. Because there wasn't anything worth adding. Like I’ve said, sometimes you have to let silence do the talking.

As we turned to leave, a single firefly caught my eye as it hovered beside the old maple tree. I watched it for a long moment. The tiny insect drifted upward, crossed above the rooftops and disappeared into the bright blue summer sky of a new day.

*****

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