Page 57 of A Light in the Dark
“I suspect my work could live without me for two to three days a month in exchange for saving them a huge bill on my education.”
“And they can help pick your business degree while you maintain full control over your pleasure degree. They get the perfect employee for their needs with Mirage education, I solve a small problem that irritates me once a month.”
“Is your secretary going to be okay?”
“She’ll be fine, but she will need to do treatments for a few more years on a monthly basis. You’ll probably be graduating by the time she’s set free from her doctors.” Joel herded me around to the back of the house where a couple who didn’t appear to be much older than him stood near the sort of grill I would consider committing felonies over. “I’m being extorted for my silk, and the woman behind it is making me like it. You did not do a good job raising me.”
I doubled over from laughter, set the bag with my yarnstash down, and waved my free hand in front of my face. “Joel!”
“What? It’s true. I’m liking being extorted, and this is not at all fair. Had I been raised better, I wouldn’t be liking being extorted.”
“I see you have made mistakes, my son,” Joel’s father said, and he strolled over. Sure enough, Joel had grown up to look a lot like his father, although he had his mother’s eyes. “You must be Valerie. Pleased to meet you.”
I recovered enough to straighten, cleared my throat, and shook hands with him. “Pleased to meet you, too, Mr. Sampson.”
Joel sighed while his father grinned. “Please, call me either Dad or Ronald. I also respond to Uncle, as I’ve got more than a few nephews and nieces around. If you ever need a spare child, just ask. I’m sure I can scrounge one up for you. We were wise and understood we only needed one son. The rest of the family can’t help but toss girls left and right, and they seem to think having a boy is a good idea. It’s really not. Boys are nothing but trouble.”
“It sounds like you deserve to be extorted, Joel.”
“Oh, come on, Valerie. Don’t side with them.”
I gestured at the bag with our food in it. “Those should be ready to go on the grill now, as we got delayed rescuing all those moths on the road. Thank you for firing up the grill for us.” I eyed Joel. “Are you going to get mad if I start calling your dad my dad? Because my dad doesn’t just fire up the grill for me. He makes me do chores first.”
“I don’t mind. In bad news, Dad, she’s from the gossip town.”
Both of his parents shook their heads and made disapproving sounds. Joel’s father wrapped his arm around me and pulled me in the direction of the grill. “You just come along this way, you poor sweet thing. Let’s get you a set of tongs and teach you the joy of unconditional fire.”
“Love, Dad. Love, not fire.”
“No, love is a default in this household, so we’re going to teach her the joy of unconditional fire. This fire is safe, and it turns steak into food. Don’t you be ruining my fun with your damned rules.”
Joel’s mother handed me a pair of tongs and took my yarn and project holder, placing them on a nearby picnic table. “You can call me Mom or Sarine. Joel is already used to sharing his mother, so don’t be shy. If I’m not Mom, I’m Aunty to many of the brats in this town. And the ones who aren’t calling me Mom or Aunty call me their sister. There are some around these parts I’m not related to, but we have a hobby of luring in spouses from other places. We usually avoid the gossips, though. They gossip. Do they ever gossip.”
I nodded my agreement, and as I had the tongs and a serious case of hunger to address, I took charge of the meat, checked the grill’s temperature, and slapped on our steaks, bouncing on my toes at the anticipated sizzle. “They really do. I fled the instant I had confirmation of my grant and understood I could use it to buy my house. I view keeping the peace on my street after the floods a small price to pay for my house. It’s a nice place, and I spend most of my extra money on fixing it up to be even nicer. Unfortunately, I discovered Shifter Five today, and I fear the majority of my frivolous money will be spent on their silk. And then Idiscovered Joel can be extorted for a small percentage of silk. But he gets to enjoy my garden as some compensation for being abused.”
Joel laughed, came over, and sat on the picnic table next to my stuff, rummaging through it and pulling out my project holder, showing it to his parents. “I was fully prepared to buy this for her, because if she wasn’t going to buy it for herself, she was getting it. She saw it, and her face lit up.”
“I have developed a compulsive luna moth obsession.” Amusingly, the back of the house had even more of the winged insects clinging to it. “I’ll be cross-stitching a luna moth with a waterfall exclusively using Shifter Five’s silk. That one was the best. Yours is good, too, but Shifter Five’s is the way.”
“She checked every shifter’s silk, and it was no contest. Shifter Five is her favorite. But she’s going to dabble in spinning, and she’s cleverly extorted me for the silk. And she’ll spin yarn for me.”
“Is it really extortion if you like it?” Joel’s father asked. He went to the building, worked his hand under a ghostly white luna moth, and carried it over. “Here. This little girl bred last night, so she’s going to pass away in the next few hours. This breed of luna moth tends to do that, though some die immediately after laying their eggs. She won’t wake up, so don’t fret about her suffering. They really don’t, not even at the end of their life. She’s in excellent condition, and you can put her on display. We have everything to preserve them, and I have a case I can spare.”
My eyes widened; the luna moth was small compared to the others, and she barely moved, supporting his statementthat she wouldn’t live for much longer. “The females die right after laying their eggs?”
“They do. We got lucky with her. We caught her in the act of laying, and we already took the eggs off to be hatched in Valleyville. Their population took a hit recently, and she had a really good clutch of eggs. Someone from town will be driving the eggs over tomorrow.” Joel’s father turned his hand so I could get a better look at the luna moth’s wings. “This color morph is pretty rare, and we don’t know if it’ll breed true, so we’re keeping a few of the eggs for ourselves and rearing them indoors. Joel has his first luna moth in his room. You can show it to her after dinner, so don’t you go running off, boy.”
“Mine’s just a regular one, but he’s pretty big.” Joel held his hands apart, giving me a general impression of the moth’s size, which fell in the massive category. “Is she the only color morph this year?”
“We have a lavender female and a rose color morph male in the house, so we’re hoping we get eggs from them tonight. I also have a few lemon morph females we’ve managed to catch with some of our better pale green males. We actually went farther afield to get the males, hoping for genetic diversity. The lavender came from the waterfall, and the rose was found near town from the wild population, so those should be good breeding stock.”
“Nice. Can we take home all the color morphs?”
“Sure,” Joel’s mother said, smiling at her son. “I’m sure we have enough preservative and cases for them all, and we can register them before you head off. What time are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow. Valerie was able to get the day off work, and I do what I want.”
“I know you do. That’s why you’re in Stonecreek being a bossy brat. Don’t you even start with me, Joel Nathan Emmanuel Oakley Sampson.”
