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

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.”

Their 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,’”