The Valley and the Flood by Rebecca Mahoney (10 best books of all time TXT) 📗

“Well, if it’s not going to rain, then how—”

“I have no idea how,” Cassie says. “But I think you do.”

What eventually comes out of my mouth isn’t so much a laugh as a nervous giggle. “How the hell would I know?”

Cassie’s lips curve a little, and she makes a twirling motion with her finger. “Turn around.”

I turn, deliberately, so she knows I’m humoring her. And behind me, as far as I can see, stretches the flat, burnt-yellow grass of Sutton Avenue.

I whip around to face front. Cassie’s still there, pooled in the icy-blue light of the Sweet as Pie Diner. Behind me I can hear mumbled orders, forks hitting plates, something sizzling from the kitchen. But when I venture another look over my shoulder, Sutton Avenue hasn’t moved.

It’s not there. It can’t be. But when I breathe in, my lungs fill up with cool, damp air that can’t possibly exist. And my body starts to remember again. All on its own.

“Now,” Cassie says, pushing the slice of pie onto my place mat. “Let’s talk about what followed you here.”

Five THE FINISH AND THE START

“ON AN UNREMARKABLE day, a teenage girl crosses the city limits of Lotus Valley and sets off a chain of events she can’t reverse.

“The girl herself isn’t the problem. Visitors aren’t completely unknown to this town. But this stranger brings on her heels an ancient visitor, a visitor wrapped in loneliness and hunger. And its reach is vast, as long as the desert itself. It will take time to catch up in its entirety. But its arrival, in the early hours of New Year’s Day—it’s inevitable.”

I balance the takeout container on my knees and shift my weight against the hard steps of Sweet as Pie’s back entrance. Through the slats of the wood, the shadows look like they’re swimming. But when I blink hard and look closer, they’re still.

“Then what?” I ask. “That’s the whole prophecy?”

“Well . . .” Cassie takes a long sip from her to-go cup. “What came next is one version of events. The idea is to alter that. At least, that’s the hope.”

“But why three days?” I say. “I’m already here.”

“The way I’ve always pictured it,” Cassie says, “it’s like a hurricane. So tremendous that you start getting the wind and rain long before the worst of it comes. Think of that but bigger.”

“But it’s a living thing,” I say. “Like your neighbors.”

“Not like the ones you’ll meet here.” I must look nervous, because Cassie’s lips twitch when she looks at me. “I’m sure you’ve gathered that this place is different than where you’re from. Lotus Valley draws an interesting crowd. Strange things, for one. But strange people, too. We don’t always mesh. But we have an understanding.”

“Which is?” I say.

“That none of us could be anywhere else.” Cassie’s smile goes grim. “Something about this place draws you in. For us, and for the neighbors. Maybe you feel it, too.”

Strange, I think, my heart sinking an inch. Great. I think of Gaby’s voice, calling for me across the desert. Was Lotus Valley drawing me in, too?

“But the thing that followed you here . . .” I can hear Cassie swallow. “Ms. Jones, the sheriff, she’s combed through our town archives. Records, oral histories, anything the neighbors were willing to tell us. There was an ocean here once, thousands of years ago. And when life on Earth shifted, when that ocean dried up, something fathomlessly powerful was born.

“And this is where this thing is different from the rest of them,” Cassie continues. “Usually when the neighbors have such a strong interest in us—in humanity—it’s because we had a hand in creating them, intentionally or not. The death of an ocean couldn’t have had less to do with us. But through the ages, it’s us they’ve followed. Filled their currents, which once held waves and water and life, with our stories.”

It should sound ridiculous. Impossible. But the air of Sutton Avenue is still swimming through my lungs.

“Why?” I ask.

“That’s what we’re still trying to figure out,” Cassie says. “Why they followed us at all. What changed. But it explains what you’ve seen today, doesn’t it? We’ve been calling it a flood because it’s the closest word in our vocabulary for what I saw. But they’re a different kind of ocean now. An ocean of memory.”

“So . . .” I wrap my arms across myself. “How does a flood of memories destroy an entire town?”

Cassie glances down, but not before I see something in her gaze cloud over. “No one’s experienced this thing for decades. Not even our neighbors. It’s possible that along the way, something changed. All I know is that what I saw wasn’t here for our stories. They were here to swallow us whole.”

I cross my arms tight. “So what happens at the end of your prophecy?”

An odd expression freezes on her face. But slowly it melts into her serene smile. “Well. Let’s not overwhelm you more than we already have.”

Her phone buzzes, and whatever’s on the screen catches her full attention—the sudden, powerful shiver that passes through me goes unnoticed. As she taps out what sounds like a novel-length response, I reach my plastic fork into the container and slice off the tip of the blueberry mint pie.

“I told you. Nectar of the gods,” Cassie says. When I glance up, she’s pocketed her phone already. “You’re going to get much further in this town if you start trusting me, Rose.”

I smile weakly. “And do you trust me?”

She smiles back, though her eyes narrow. “Ask again later.”

“So you can’t tell by looking at me?” I ask. Her eyes narrow some more, but I’m being sincere this time. Mostly.

“That’s the trouble with prophecy,” she says slowly. “You never know what comes before. But whether I trust you or not, my plan is still the same. How about you?”

I drive the fork into the crust and give it a twist. “I need to see that radio station.”

“I can arrange that,” she says.

“And I need to know