Glow of the Fireflies

by Lindsey Duga

  “That was…” I drummed my fingers on the edge of the bench, now not even remembering how or why I’d done that. “Iz, I barely know him and he’s…he’s not even human.”

  “So? He looks human, and he’s fine as hell.”

  “I’m so done talking about this. C’mon, let’s go to bed.”

  We headed back inside, and I was glad the house’s conditioned air cooled my inflamed cheeks. In a way, Izzie’s accusation had left me with the same sensation of vertigo—of my world tilting—as the first time I’d set foot in this valley. Our conversation replayed in my mind as I climbed the stairs to my bedroom, reinforcing my already growing fear that I was beginning to feel something for the boy I’d left behind.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dad tossed another log on top of the burning pile. The flames crackled and popped at the new fuel. They danced hungrily across the dry wood, eating at it faster than termites, transforming the once vibrant tree bark full of life and energy into ash. Embers exploded in a shower of sparks, climbing high into the night sky.

  I held out a stick with a marshmallow attached over the flames. All too quickly, the marshmallow went from fluffy white to charred black.

  The fire on the sweet treat traveled up my stick, and the heat burned my fingers. I couldn’t drop it in time. The flames touched my fingers, curling around them in red and gold shades.

  I tried to shake my hand to get it off, and sparks flew to the grass at my feet. Igniting.

  I wanted to stamp on the growing fire around my toes, but I was barefoot and my hand was already burning. My breath came out in panicky bursts.

  Make it stop! Make it stop!

  Whispers came from behind me and I felt the need to run, but I couldn’t because the fire at my feet was too high to jump over.

  A hand touched my shoulder, and I jerked away, screaming, the hand raking downward in sharp, blinding pain against my lower back.

  …

  Cold sweat coated my skin as I forced my eyes open in the darkness of my attic bedroom. Tossing the covers to the side, I groaned, threading my fingers into my hair and feeling the beads of sweat along my temples.

  Yet another nightmare. But this time, not a memory. Or maybe, it had started out as one. Perhaps they became mixed together like dreams do.

  Either way, I hadn’t woken up because of it. I woke up because the scars on my lower back were killing me. They throbbed and pulsed as if they were freshly made and not six years old.

  It was strange. These scars had never hurt me before. Not even an ache. I would’ve remembered that after the fire.

  Thirsty after a dream where I’d been surrounded by heat and having sweated through my night shirt, I got up, changed, and headed downstairs for a glass of water.

  At the sink, I took a cup out of the dish rack and filled it with water. As the water filled my glass, I glanced up and froze in awe at the scene through the window.

  I abandoned my water and went out the back door, letting it shut behind me with a slight creak on its hinges.

  The garden was alight with wisps.

  They were all varying shades of pastel colors. Light pink, lavender, periwinkle, sky blue, lime green, rose gold, pearly white—it was as if the wisps took on softer versions of the colors of the nature around them. Of the pinkish red rhododendrons, deep orange black-eyed Susans, and vibrant green leaves and vines.

  Moving through the garden, my bare feet crunching over weeds and pebbles and discarded flower petals but feeling no discomfort, I admired these so-called fireflies. These wisps that were evidence of a world beyond our own.

  They were so beautiful.

  Had I seen these every night as a child? Had they been so normal to me that they’d lost their novelty?

  A wisp floated in front of me, doing a loop-de-loop in midair.

  No, that wasn’t possible. Nothing could take away their magic.

  “Brye?”

  I stopped moving through the garden and turned in the direction of my nickname. To my right, Alder stood in the yard, a few steps from the tree line, just near enough to see his face but not read his expression.

  He moved closer, the wisps twirling around him, lighting up his features and shining their own multicolored light on his silver hair.

  “What are you doing up? Is that rash still bothering you?”

  I glanced down at my arms. I’d already forgotten about the magical poison ivy. “No, it feels fine. Why? Were you here to check on me?”

  Alder was now at the edge of the garden and only a low bush of magenta geraniums stood between us, while a few light pink wisps floated around our knees. He shrugged and glanced away, maybe a little embarrassed to have been called out. “I guess I was worried.”

  I smiled, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “That seems to be your constant state.”

  Alder let out a quick, exhausted laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess you’re right. I didn’t always used to be like this, though.”

  “So what were you like?” I blurted. “I mean, what were we like?”

  Alder’s gaze lifted to meet mine, and then lowered to the bracelet I’d made for him. “We were…”

  This wasn’t going to be easy for him. I’m sure it had to be painful, talking to an old friend and telling them what they’d forgotten even though you remembered it all like it was yesterday. But I couldn’t bring myself to stop my questions and my desire to know. To remember.

  “How did we meet?” I asked, my fingers brushing against the butter-soft geranium petals.

  “You’d gotten lost.”

  “Really?”

  His mouth hooked into a half smile, his gaze far off as if caught by the memory. “Yeah. You were five, I guess. Old enough to have been able to wander into the woods outside your house. I found you crying under a poplar tree and then I led you back home. And I guess I”—he stuffed his hands in his pockets, lifted shoulders to ears in a shrug—“kept coming back.”

  We were quiet for a moment as warmth seemed to spread from my chest and into my cheeks and palms. I wiped my hands on my old night shirt and cursed that I was in my pajamas.

  “How did you know where I lived?” I asked.

  “I may not know everyone’s name, but if all you do is hike through this valley for eighteen years, you begin to know it like the back of your hand, including where people live and what they do. But it’s almost impossible to keep track of the spirits in the ethereal plane. They wander around a lot.”

  Trapped between worlds.

  I swallowed, folding my arms across my chest. “I guess my parents hadn’t been all that worried about me.”

  Alder ducked his head, meeting my gaze. “No, they were incredibly worried.”

  I stared back at him. “Well, maybe my dad was.”

  “Your dad wasn’t even home. Your mother and gran were beside themselves with worry.”

  Then why did she leave? And I knew she had, because I’d seen her walk out the back door that night. It was the one memory I wish I could forget. I remembered her tone of anger and frustration, bordering on desperation.

  But I couldn’t ask Alder that. For one I didn’t want to show him how vulnerable I was. And for another, he wouldn’t know in the first place. Instead, I asked, “How do you think Mom got into the spirit world? Is there a way for humans to pass through without your mana?”

  Alder nodded. “There is. It’s a hiking trail. It’s closed to most humans, though. Those truly connected to this valley can enter, but they can only stay in the ethereal plane, and most find their way out anyway. I’ve led a few hikers out that accidentally wandered in.”

  “Why just the ethereal plane? Why not the astral plane, too?”

  “Nothing physical can exist in the astral plane, remember?”

  “So…wait, are you telling me Mom is still somewhere
in the ethereal world?” Come to think of it, Mom had never said exactly where she was in the spirit world, only that she was trapped by some spirit—the mysterious “he.”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Then we can just go get her!” I exploded, throwing my hands in the air. “Who cares about the gates! We can just go rescue her and take her back through the pathway. She was in a meadow.”

  I grabbed his arm, pulling him through the garden, my pulse racing. Mom probably had been convinced by Raysh that these gates needed to be open, which was why she asked me to open them. When in reality I could just go find her in the ethereal meadow. This is such bullshit. This was why I didn’t trust anyone. They were always out for themselves. Raysh just wanted to see the physical world, so he made up this nonsense about having to open gates.

  “No, Brye—” Alder dug his heels into the loose soil of the garden, planting himself like a massive oak. “That’s not how it works.”

  “What do you know?” I whirled around to glare at him. “You’ve said yourself you hardly know anything.”

  Pain flashed across his face and immediately I regretted snapping at him.

  I dropped my hand from his arm. “I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated.”

  He folded his arms then ran one hand up his shoulder to wrap around his neck. The muscles in his forearm strained, and I wondered what kind of war was going on in his head. Finally he said, quietly, “I know you are, but let me explain. The ethereal plane is not meant to contain humans for a long period of time. They either find their own way out, or their spirit—their soul, rather—is pulled toward the astral plane.”

  “Their soul?”

  “A human’s soul is pure life and energy. It is mana in a raw form, not bound by elements or anything else. If your mother was kidnapped by this spirit that had gone after you, or if she wandered into the spirit world and stayed there for this long, then the only way she could still be alive is by her spirit existing in the astral plane. It’s why the gates are so important. It will allow her spirit to pass through the barriers to the ethereal plane and rejoin her body.”

  “So we need to find her body in the ethereal world, too?” I groaned, leaning against the short white picket fence that ran around Gran’s garden.

  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Alder said, the slightest hint of a smile touching his lips. “I don’t know a lot of spirits. But I have some…friends, I guess you could say. They agreed to look for your mother’s body. Once we open the gates, we’ll have time between when the solstice begins and when it ends to find your mother’s spirit and get her back to her body.”

  Knowing what I was up against, seeing the clear path to success, made the weight on my shoulders lighter and I was able to return his small smile. “So, these friends…have I met them?”

  Alder actually laughed. “No, I was content to keep you to myself when we were kids.”

  My face flushed, but Alder didn’t seem to notice that he said anything remotely heart-racing.

  “What else?” I asked.

  “What else what?”

  “What else did we do when we were kids?” I was hungry for more. More of this past that must’ve been so beautiful and magical.

  No wonder the hole in my chest hurt so terribly. No wonder I felt like I’d lost a piece of myself here.

  “Come this way.” Alder turned and gestured for me to follow him. Together, we moved through the wild jungle that was Gran’s garden, pushing aside overgrown shrubs and dandelion weeds that had grown to the size of house cats. Alder stopped at the edge of the porch around the side of the house. Dropping one knee into the dirt, he knelt and stuck his hand underneath the porch.

  He grinned. “Thank goodness. I was worried she’d found them and gotten rid of them.”

  Before I could ask what he meant, he had withdrawn his arm from under the porch. In his hand was a silver pail with a few different things inside. Simple household items, but I knew immediately what they had been.

  A child’s adventuring kit.

  I plucked out each and set them on the porch. A pair of binoculars, a small spade, a flashlight, and a mason jar.

  “We watched movies, and we played board games, and read books,” Alder said, “but more than anything else, we explored. We went all over this valley together.”

  My fingers raked across the pair of binoculars as if feeling them could somehow bring back their associated memories. It couldn’t, but I could imagine.

  Bird watching in the trees with binoculars as he would call out the types of birds to me. Blackberry picking with him. More berries in our stomachs than in the silver pail. Catching fireflies, real ones maybe, in mason jars, and letting them go before I was called in for dinner.

  A few wisps floated by, illuminating my face and Alder’s, and, for a fleeting moment, I saw the face of the boy my mind had forgotten but my heart hadn’t.

  The next second, the wisps twirled away, and Alder’s older, more angular face was swallowed in shadow. He placed a strong hand on top of mine that rested on the pail’s rim and my heart skipped.

  He said quietly, “You should get some sleep, Brye.”

  But I didn’t want to. What waited for me in my bed was possibly more fiery nightmares, and then the following morning I’d have to go after the next spirit key and fight another deadly powerful guardian.

  As I accepted his hand to help me up, I wondered, though, which was more dangerous. An almighty nature spirit or my growing feelings for one?

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning, Izzie was knocking at my door at the butt-crack of dawn. When I let her in, still in my pajamas, she eyed me with an amused smirk. “Is that what you’re wearing to go traipsing around in a spirit world with Mr. Cheekbones?”

  Deciding not to admit that he’d already seen me in my pajamas, I stepped aside to let her in.

  “You’re really not coming, Iz,” I said with a yawn.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “Okay, but let’s say I’m right. How are you going to cover for me with Gran? She won’t buy the same excuse twice.” I crossed to my suitcase and pulled out a fresh set of clothes.

  “Why are you asking me that? This is your whole idea,” Izzie snapped.

  “But you’re better at improv,” I said, stepping inside the closet to change.

  “Is that your way of telling me I’m a good liar?” she asked, her voice carrying through the door.

  I tugged the fresh shirt over my head. “No, it’s my way of telling you you’re a brilliant actress.”

  “Well, you’re not wrong there. What are you doing?”

  Finished changing, I’d crossed to the window and lifted the bug screen. “Sneaking out.” I took stock of my options by leaning over the edge and observing the garden and the side of the house. Directly below was a white wooden trellis. Honeysuckle vines wound up the wood, with tiny yellowish-white flowers peeking out in the dark green leaves. I wasn’t sure if the old trellis would hold my weight, but I wasn’t that heavy and…well, the fall wasn’t that far.

  “Through the window?” Izzie hissed, hurrying over to grab my elbow.

  “I just heard Gran downstairs. She can’t see me leaving or she’ll get upset. This is better, trust me,” I said, thinking of the worried look she’d had yesterday.

  “I’m coming down, too, then.”

  Rolling my eyes, I hoisted my leg over the window sill, my bare foot finding purchase with the diamond shape of the trellis. “Okay, fine. You do you.”

  Slowly, I lowered myself down the trellis. It trembled slightly, but it held strong. I hopped down the last few feet, my sneakers finding a cushioned landing in the soft grass and dandelion weeds curling up from under the edges of the house. Izzie dropped down next to me and together we snuck across the garden to the tree line.

  We didn’t have to wait
long for Alder to show up, and much to Izzie’s aggravation, Alder took my side, saying exactly what I’d predicted. “There’s no way I’m giving you any more,” he said.

  Izzie glared at the two of us, like we were somehow in on the whole thing together. As if I’d choose to join up with an estranged nature spirit and unlock mystical gates guarded by giant magic animals for funsies.

  “I don’t like any of this,” she growled, then turned to Alder, sticking a finger in his face. “If you let anything happen to her, I swear to Beyoncé—”

  “What are you going to tell Gran?” I asked, interjecting before Izzie could describe a creative way to castrate my childhood friend.

  She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “I guess I’ll have to think of something. She mentioned something about her Bridge Club yesterday. So we might go play cards with some old biddies who smell like Mary Kay products.”

  I gave my friend a swift hug. “No amount of Starbucks gift cards in the world can thank you enough.”

  “Oh, there’s an amount, you just can’t afford it.”

  As Izzie headed up the porch steps, Alder and I turned toward the forest. After we passed through the bushes of pastel-colored chrysanthemum, Alder muttered, “She scares me a little.”

  Laughing, I jogged into the trees, Alder following behind me. I could’ve sworn I heard him chuckle, too.

  …

  We emerged into a clearing with a stream. Blue mana flowed everywhere, weaving into the grass and up the trees, winding around the branches and coating the leaves with it. The mana’s origin seemed to be the stream, with the mist-like energy clouding above the water like the bottom of a waterfall.

  Edging closer to the creek’s bank, I could see the mana move like it was the current itself, and maybe it was. Under the glassy surface, tiny minnows swam, following the mana’s and the water’s flow as if they were merely passengers. Perhaps they weren’t swimming at all. Dipping my hand into the stream, the blue mana wound around my fingertips and I could actually taste the water. The chill temperature and its freshness coated my tongue and bled into the reservoir of mana that was building within me.