The Valley and the Flood by Rebecca Mahoney

Author:Rebecca Mahoney [Mahoney, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780593114360
Google: W77NDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0593114353
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2021-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

THE INTERMISSION

“IT’S BEEN YEARS. Many of your lifetimes, I’d say.”

The figures overhead, perched on the library roof at the southwestern point of town, look about fifteen feet tall in the light of the sun. But it’s hard to say. They’re only visible from a certain angle, and it’s impossible, somehow, to look at them directly.

But however hard they are to look at, they’re strangely easy to talk to.

“We are surprised,” another says. “We knew your flood to be a gentle soul. We heard rumors over time of a change. But we did not give them much weight.”

“Perhaps you might ask one of your own kind,” another chimes in politely. “They went to live among you. You’ve seen much more of them than we, surely.”

Cassie clears her throat. She’s not quite hiding behind me, but she’s close. “Humans don’t all know one another.”

I scribble Live among us? in my running list of notes, right below their collective happiest memory: a lengthy, lurid description of an ant climbing a cactus.

“Thank you,” I say. “That helps.”

“We wish you peace, child,” one says softly. The hairs at the back of my neck prickle.

“You might tell your kind to visit more often,” another says. “It’s become quiet, this place.”

“You kidnapped fifteen people from this spot in the seventies alone,” Felix says.

There’s a pause. Then, in a perfect imitation of Cassie, the sound of a throat clearing. “Our thoughts on humanity have evolved.”

“Oh,” Felix says faintly. “Neat.”

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