The Firefly Hours (A Silas Sharp Metaphysical Mystery): Chapter 10

 

Chasing Fireflies
by Follow Themoonart

Chapter 10 – The First Warning

There's a difference between danger and consequence. A thunderstorm isn't dangerous. Standing beneath the tallest tree in the county while holding a metal rake is. The ocean isn't dangerous. Choosing to wade into a rip current when you can’t swim is. People have a habit of blaming places for decisions they made inside them.

By Saturday evening, I'd begun wondering whether the Firefly Hours were dangerous or not.

The oldest resident on Willow Lane was a man of eighty-six years named Arthur McCreary. A retired high school principal and widower, Arthur lived alone in the only ranch-style house that predated the subdivision by nearly thirty years. Developers had simply built around him. His house sat stubbornly among the McMansions like a man who'd refused to wear a necktie to a black-tie dinner. The paint was peeling. The porch sagged. Something resembling a vegetable garden occupied most of what should have been the front lawn.

I liked it immediately.

Arthur was waiting on the porch before I reached the steps.

"You the detective?"

"Word certainly gets around."

He nodded toward the empty rocking chair beside him.

"Sit,” he said, not giving me another option. "You've been asking questions."

"I have."

"You've talked to the children."

"Yes."

"Eleanor?"

"Yesterday."

He rocked quietly for a while in the kind of silence earned over decades instead of manufactured by awkwardness. Finally, he spoke.

"You're asking the wrong question, you know."

"Occupational hazard," I said.

"You keep asking what the Firefly Hours are."

"What should I be asking?"

Arthur watched two children ride bicycles past his house.

"You should be asking why they end."

The first fireflies appeared above his tomato plants. Arthur noticed me looking.

"They're punctual,” he said.

"So I've noticed."

"You know what people get wrong?"

"Only one thing?"

He chuckled. "They think the Hour starts when the fireflies come out."

"It doesn't?"

"No."

"When does it start?"

"Couldn't tell you." He shrugged. “But I have seen it end.”

We watched the neighborhood settle into its familiar evening rhythm. Children wandered toward the park. Parents called reminders that nobody seemed particularly interested in obeying. The air softened and colors faded. I no longer questioned the transition. Only what waited on the other side of it. Arthur leaned forward.

"Those things aren't ghosts, are they?" I asked Arthur.

"They're not."

"What are they?"

He smiled. "I've been trying to answer that question since Gerald Ford was president." He settled back again. "But I learned something more useful. The Hour isn't dangerous."

A long pause.

"Staying is."

I thought about Harold. Ben. Emily's birthday. The argument in the garage.

"They don't seem dangerous," I said.

"They aren't."

"So why leave?"

Arthur looked toward the trees where dozens of fireflies blinked in patient rhythm.

"Because eventually..." He searched for the right words. "...the Hour starts believing you belong to it."

The sentence landed harder than I expected.

"How does that happen?" I asked. Usually, it would have been a moment to take notes but something told me I would remember every word I was about to hear.

"It starts small.” Arthur’s voice sound almost ethereal. "You lose track of time. You stop noticing you're hungry. You forget why you came."

Arthur stood. Slowly. Carefully. His knees protested this decision.

"Come with me.” He gestured for me to follow as he led me through the side gate into the backyard. Unlike every other property on Willow Lane, this one still backed up against a strip of undeveloped woods. The trees were older here. Taller, wise, and patient. Arthur stopped beside an old stone birdbath. Someone had carved a date into its base.

1984.

He rested one hand on the weathered stone.

"There used to be another house over there." He pointed toward the woods. "Used to belong to the Petersons."

"I don't see it on any maps," I said.

"You won't.” He didn’t look at me. His gaze remained fixed on the woods.

"What happened?"

Arthur didn't answer immediately. He watched the fireflies drift beneath the trees.

"There was a boy,” he finally said.

My pulse quickened.

"How old?"

"Thirteen. Maybe fourteen.”

"What was his name?"

"Danny." The name meant nothing to me. Not yet. "He liked the Firefly Hours.”

"So do the other children,” I said, not sure where Arthur’s story was headed.

"Difference is..." He looked at me. "...Danny stopped coming home when his mother called."

The breeze disappeared.

"So, he ran away?"

"No."

"He got lost?"

Arthur's eyes drifted toward the woods. "I don't think so."

"What happened?"

"He stayed."

A dreadful, awful silence hung in the air.

"For how long?" I asked against my better judgment.

Arthur swallowed. "We never found out."

"You mean he disappeared."

"I mean..." Arthur's voice grew very quiet as he looked toward the trees. "...his mother called him in for supper. And one evening he never answered."

The fireflies blinked together. I waited for the rest. It never came.

A bicycle bell rang somewhere beyond the park. Someone lit a citronella candle on a nearby patio. Everything looked exactly as it should. Except now the neighborhood carried the weight of something missing. Arthur placed a hand on my shoulder.

"If you're going to keep investigating.” He nodded toward the trees. "Promise me one thing."

"What?"

"When the children go home, you do, too.”

Driving away, I couldn't shake the feeling that Arthur had told me less than he knew. Some stories become smaller every time they're spoken aloud. As I reached the end of Laurel Lane, I glanced in the rearview mirror. Arthur was still standing beside the birdbath. Watching the trees. Watching the fireflies. Watching for someone. And I couldn't escape the feeling that after all these years he still expected Danny Peterson to come home.

*****

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