The Valley and the Flood

by Rebecca Mahoney

  He whips around, stricken. “I didn’t know about this place,” he says. “If I had, I never would have brought you h—”

  “Hang on,” Felix interrupts. “You were going to do what?”

  Alex stands a little straighter. But even in the dark, I see his face flush. “They live here, too,” he says. “They know more about the Flood than we do. I was just going to ask around a little. I wouldn’t have gone anywhere dangerous.”

  “But you were going to go alone,” Felix says.

  “I never said—” Alex starts.

  “You don’t have to!” Felix throws his hands in the air. “If you wanted us along, you wouldn’t have hidden it from us!”

  Alex takes an audible deep breath. “They’re more likely to talk to me,” he says, “if I’m by myself.”

  “Right,” Felix says, “because they’re buttering you up before they eat you.”

  “Guys, stop,” Cassie says.

  “You know what, no,” Felix says. “I’m not going to let this—”

  “Look at them,” Cassie says, a little more emphatically. “They’re listening.”

  I glance back at her, and then at the thing blocking our path. They look less solid at the edges now, like their grip on the door has loosened somewhat. Not enough that we could force our way through, maybe. But I think she’s right. They’re listening.

  “We should figure out what they want,” Alex says.

  “They told us what they want,” Cassie says. “Right?”

  A low, shivery hum fills the room. Like approval.

  “Okay, so, talk,” Felix says. “Talk about what?”

  Cassie blinks. “I didn’t say I knew that.”

  We stand there, glancing from each other to the walls. Felix slumps against a chair, all the fight gone out of him for the time being, and Alex’s gaze drops to the ground. I wonder, at first, if our captors will get impatient with us. But they seem perfectly content to wait us out.

  “Rose . . .” When I look to Felix, he’s chewing on his lip. “You said, ‘Is that you?’ Who were you talking to?”

  “Oh.” I said that, didn’t I? “I’m . . .”

  “You spoke to them,” Cassie says. I glance over my shoulder. There’s something—hungry about the way she’s looking at me. “The Flood.”

  “I—” There’s no reason to deny it now. She already knows. “I did. Last night. But it was more of a—I mean—I didn’t really learn anything. We just—talked. Or I tried, anyway.”

  “You could’ve told us,” Felix says. Before Alex gets the chance to glare at him, he quickly adds, “Sorry. I just mean, we want to help, y’know? But if you don’t say anything—”

  “I know,” I say. My chest is burning, like I’m embarrassed. But I don’t think that’s it. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. Or that I don’t want to say anything. It’s more like I can’t?”

  I pause, ready to let that be explanation enough. But the more I say, the more the web of shadows blocking our way seem to—calm down. They look almost smaller now. Like a puffed-up cat slowly realizing that you aren’t here for a fight.

  “My dad died when I was pretty young?” I say. I don’t know why I make it a question. “So it was . . . difficult, for my mom. She hid it well, and she did a great job for me, but I always had this sense like I didn’t want to be another problem. And even when things got better, and when she met my stepfather, I guess it was a habit by then. The only one I really talked to was . . .”

  They’re still watching, still listening—my new friends and the shadows around us. But there’s no way I’m going there.

  I clear my throat, hard. “So I still don’t. I never know where to start.”

  Felix and Alex glance to each other. But Cassie’s gaze hasn’t wavered.

  “What did they say?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. There’s a little ripple in the air, a shiver running through each of those dark branches. “I think they wanted to tell me something, but I didn’t understand it. But I asked if they planned to destroy this place. And they said yes.”

  Felix laughs, just barely loud enough that I can hear the panic. When he speaks, it’s quiet. “Guys. Let’s give this up.”

  Cassie’s outline quivers. But Alex speaks first. “We’ve talked about this.”

  “And now we’re talking about it again,” Felix says. “We’re not getting those votes tonight. And even if we do, you heard Rose. They’re not going to stop.”

  “We’ll keep trying,” I say.

  “That’s not enough for me,” Felix bites out. “My entire family lives here. And they won’t leave without me. I’ve asked.”

  Alex’s eyes soften a little. “You don’t have to stay, Felix.”

  Felix looks away, his shoulders hunched. “I’m not leaving without you, either. And I’m guessing you won’t.”

  Alex doesn’t answer right away. I wonder if Felix can see what I can—that his resolve is there, fastened into place as firm as he can make it. But that maybe, just a little, he wishes that it wasn’t.

  “You know I have to do this,” Alex says.

  Felix drags a hand through his hair with a choked laugh. “You don’t have anything to make up for! You were a child! You asked for help! That’s what you were supposed to do!”

  “I do.” Alex’s voice is still firm. But he looks far younger than he did just a second ago. “I was the one who made it the way it was.”

  Felix opens and closes his fists, like he’d like nothing more in the world than to shake sense into Alex. But his voice is quiet. Gentle. “How do you figure that?”

  Alex doesn’t answer right away. His gaze, still a little lost, shifts to me. Maybe because I’m in the same boat now. Or because it’s easier than looking at Felix.

  “I was sick long before my neighbor ever found me,” he says. “Complications from my asthma, mostly. Rarely anything serious. But enough that it feels like my whole childhood was doctor’s offices and emergency rooms.

  “And this particular time—well, I didn’t make the connection then,” he continues. “I guess there’s no way I could have, until I was older. And it was such a little thing. It shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did. But I was maybe six or seven years old and getting discharged from the hospital after my usual winter pneumonia. And the nurse said something like . . . I don’t remember exactly what it was.”

  I nod as he pauses. Though it seems pretty clear to me that he remembers it word for word. At length, he presses on. “She said, ‘You’re becoming quite the regular, aren’t you? It’s a good thing your father can take time off work.’”

  Alex swallows. “It’s amazing, the things people say to sick kids. Like they’re doing it intentionally.”

  “She didn’t know what she was talking about,” Felix says.

  Alex’s face softens. “I know that now. But back then, it flipped a switch I couldn’t turn off. I started noticing all the little sacrifices Dad made. I started looking at the bills. We were learning about symbiotic relationships in science class that year. I learned that a parasite is something that feeds off other animals to survive. So that’s why I looked at him one night and thought, What if I’m a parasite?

  “And . . .” He shrugs helplessly. “That neighbor came to me that year and took the form of a parasite. That can’t be a coincidence, right? It had to have been born from what I was feeling.”

  I can tell two things from the look on Felix’s face: that he’d forgive anything Alex ever did, and that he understands, maybe because of this, that Alex might not believe what he wants to say right now. So I step in.

  “You couldn’t have controlled what you were feeling. Especially when someone forced their own feelings onto you,” I say. “My th—Someone I know says it’s hard to admit that you didn’t have control over something. But he says it’s real
ly freeing to finally accept.”

  I can tell that argument doesn’t fully land—I can see it on Alex’s face. This is the same person who told me I didn’t ask for this. I wonder if it would be hypocritical of me to remind him of that.

  “I know it wasn’t my fault. Or Ms. Jones’s,” he says. “I just . . . want to be able to do something about it next time.”

  “You have,” Felix says. “Over and over, for so many people. Me included. And you don’t have to stay here just because you feel—”

  “No.” Alex shakes his head. “It’s not all because of that.”

  “What do you mean?” Felix says.

  “I know this doesn’t make sense,” Alex says, “but just evacuating isn’t enough.”

  “I get that you think that,” Felix says. “I want to understand. But I don’t.”

  “You would if you could see it.” He barely shifts. But I can tell he’s talking to Cassie now. “It’s going to be really bad, isn’t it? If we can’t stop it.”

  I turn to face her. She’s not looking at me, or at Alex. When she speaks, she sounds far away. Like a voice at the bottom of a well.

  “If we can’t stop it,” she says, “it’s more than just the end of this town. And if the Flood fully crosses our border? Then what I saw is inevitable.”

  I take a breath, and it fills my lungs with that same cold, humid air that I’m beginning to recognize. Every one of us is still, hanging on Cassie’s words. And so is the Flood.

  By then I notice the low rumbling sound by the door, slowly building. As I turn my head toward it, I feel a weight shift, slide from my shoulders and vanish. I think the Flood has moved back, just a little. But they’re not my first priority this time.

  “Rose,” Felix hisses as I make my way across the theater, but all common sense aside, I’m not afraid. I’ve been a cat person since I could speak. I know that sound. The branches are purring.

  “Is it okay if I ask you a question now?” I say softly, moving closer. The rumbling grows louder. “You wanted us to talk. Were you asking us to talk to one another?”

  I lift my hand and hold it out to one branch, close enough to feel the static between us but not quite there. In the dim light, the branch shifts, unknots itself, and reaches back. And I feel soft fur and a cold nose slip between my outstretched fingers.

  The branches burst apart and scatter.

  I hear a scream behind me—Cassie. She’s got one of the creatures draped around her neck, nuzzling her face. Soon they’re swarming me, too, like sleek black party streamers weaving between my limbs.

  “Rose, what the hell is—” Felix gasps as one slips down the back of his jacket.

  “They didn’t just want us to talk.” Alex lifts his hand wonderingly to one that’s draped across his shoulders like a feather boa. It tilts its little head into his touch. “They wanted us to have a conversation?”

  “Every neighbor feeds off something, right?” I watch a few sail and crisscross overhead. I realize then that I’m smiling. Wider than I’m used to, these days. “And I figure they can’t have had a lot to eat these past few years.”

  There’s a chorus of deeply aggrieved huffs and a volley of whispers overhead.

  “Street.”

  “Noise.”

  “Television.”

  “No.”

  “More.”

  “Than.”

  “Snacks.”

  “They’re very welcome,” Cassie says, standing stiffly. “Maybe they could show their appreciation a little farther away?”

  There’s a high, rolling sound, like laughter, and they sail into the air again, collecting against the walls on either side of us. One tries to settle into my arms, but another, with a little huff, pulls it along to join the rest.

  “Well?” a little voice says.

  “Ask,” another chimes. Now that they’re speaking above whispers, I can hear that their voices are distinct, theatrical—one word is a brassy mid-Atlantic drawl, the next has a Brooklyn lilt.

  Felix, mouth agape, nudges Alex again. Alex dives for the folded piece of paper in his pocket. “Ah. Um. Are you familiar with the entity that was born here?”

  This time, they’re definitely laughing. And again, their answers come in clipped, individual words, volleying all around us, each voice different from the last.

  “We.”

  “Are.”

  “But.”

  “Children.”

  “To.”

  “Them.”

  I shiver. I knew, didn’t I? I can feel it every time they’re near, how many lifetimes they’ve lived. “But you’ve heard of them.”

  A low hum. “Stories.”

  “Whispers.”

  “Memory.”

  Cassie watches them, eyes wide and wary. When she speaks again, her voice is determinedly, rigidly polite. “Is there anything you know that would help us? Please. We don’t—we don’t have much time.”

  There’s low, indistinct chatter, like they’re talking among themselves. This time, the answer takes much longer to come.

  “Listen.”

  “Remember.”

  “Understand.”

  Felix shifts behind me, leaning in to Alex. “Do you know what that means?”

  “I do,” I say without looking. My own voice sounds very far away from me.

  I can feel their eyes on me, how badly they want to ask. But the next thing Felix says is, “Then what else?”

  “I don’t know.” Alex scans his list of questions again, like something there will help.

  “I think I do,” I say softly. We’re interviewing them not just as neighbors, but as citizens of Lotus Valley. So we should ask them what we’re asking everyone else.

  I take a step back, so I can see both sides of the swarm. “What’s your happiest memory?” I call.

  They don’t know what to do with that, at first. But then they dissipate, collecting by the ceiling overhead, then darting to the screen. Some of them form shapes against the backdrop: two people, chattering indistinctly. Others fill the first row of the audience, whispering, laughing. A crowd, watching a movie.

  And I think I recognize those distinct, theatrical voices now. They’re not voices, exactly. They’re bits of dialogue.

  There’s a little sound that echoes. Something like a sigh.

  “With.”

  “Every.”

  “New.”

  “Word’s.”

  “Creation.”

  “One.”

  “Of.

  “Us.”

  “Lives.”

  “So each of you was born from the invention of a new word,” Alex asks.

  “And if conversation feeds you,” I say, “this theater must have been all you needed.” There’s a trill of approval. “And those memories, what would you give to live them one more time?”

  This time, there’s no question of what they form: a slowly rotating orb, patterned with vague shapes of continents.

  “The world,” I say softly. “Okay. That’s fair.”

  We didn’t learn anything that we didn’t know before. But I glance at the piece of paper in Alex’s hands, those forbidden areas of town. And they feel a little less foreboding than they did just a few minutes ago.

  They live here. Just like everyone else.

  “Alex,” I say, “I think you’re right about talking to the neighbors. And I think you should take us with you.”

  Somehow, I don’t think it needed to be said. When he looks back at me, he breaks into one of those rare smiles. Like he already knew.

  To the theater, he says, “Thank you for your time.”

  They swarm us again before they scatter, to the ceiling and to the corners.

  “Good.”

  “Luck.”

  Th
eir rustling, eventually, goes still. And when Felix tries the door, it’s open.

  “Sweet dancing Christmas.” He sighs, slumping headfirst into the frame. “I’m gonna kill John Jonas.”

  “I liked them,” Alex says mildly.

  Felix shoots him a soft, indiscernible look. “Of course you did.”

  I smile at their retreating backs. Half of me does want to drive back across town to introduce John Jonas to a few projectiles. But I guess he was right. We’re communicating now.

  Alex and Felix are the first to head through the door, and I’m close behind them. But then I see Cassie out of the corner of my eye.

  “Cassie?” I say.

  “Hmm?” she says brightly. “Go on ahead. We’re a little behind schedule, by my estimation.”

  But I don’t move. With our company gone, I suddenly remember what she said.

  “‘It’s inevitable,’” I echo slowly. “What’s inevitable?”

  “The tides,” she says. “The death of our sun. The questionable quality of the avocados in the Jacobs Street Market. Take your pick.”

  “Cassie,” I say. She still doesn’t look at me. “You never told me what happens at the end of your prophecy.”

  “The future is a variable, Rose,” she says to her feet. “It can change. It changes all the time, without our knowing. When a prophecy doesn’t come to pass, it doesn’t mean the prophet was wrong. It just means we as a species took an unexpected turn somewhere.”

  Her voice shrinks. “Sometimes it doesn’t matter how many turns you take. Sometimes a thousand different things could change, and every single one of them leads you to the same place. And if we don’t stop that flood from coming—there’s only one way this is going to end.”

  I reach for her arm—not sure what I’m going to do with it, exactly. She sidesteps me and starts to walk.

  “Let’s go,” she says to the hallway.

  “Cassie—” I try again, but she keeps at that same clipped pace. And without conscious thought, I remember something she said yesterday, halfway down those basement stairs at Lotus Valley Elementary.

  This isn’t how I die.

  But I don’t just remember it. Someone whispers it in the dark behind me, too.