Page 93 of A Light in the Dark
“No, you are not getting stoned on more roses right now,” my boss told me. He carried me over to the platter of fruit and berries, setting me down on the rim. “You can have this. You should probably take those away for a while, else she’ll get stoned on them again. This is what the younglingsalwaysdo, and once you introduce them to roses, you have to monitor them. The fact her entire place has become a luna moth paradise is not going to be good for our sanity. She’s going to love it, but we’re going to have to distribute keys to her place to get her out of her own roses. Had Joel realized she’d pick up his genetics this easily, he wouldn’t have enabled her quite as much.”
“It usually takes years for the genetics transfer, right?” Roger asked, and he picked up the roses, opened the door, and said something to someone outside before handing overthe flowers. “She hasn’t been interacting with him much before now, has she?”
“We think he’s been sniffing at her turf for a week or two now in earnest, although the rescue had them starting their close proximity. Could the rescue have done something to speed the genetics?” My boss moved an orange slice my way. “Eat this, Valerie. It’ll help with your wings.”
“So, I wasn’t wrong about something being up with her wings?”
“It’s one part first shift, one part expression of injuries. She’s massive for a luna moth shifter, and it looks like her wings are being slow to properly straighten. That could be due to a few days with limited calories. When I talked to Joel, she was eating on par with a new shifter, which had caught his attention. He’d assumed, at least before she shifted, that it was because of working extra hours and doing a lot of gardening. She’s physically active.”
“From what Joel texted me, she jumped over a car about to hit her.”
“In heels. It was horrific and impressive.”
Roger grabbed one of the oranges from a fruit bowl, peeled it, and set the whole thing next to me. “Has anyone checked to see if the crash was related?”
“Joel is looking into it.”
As an entire orange beat just a slice, I climbed onto my prize, scrambled to the top, and went to work defeating my latest foe. While mundane luna moths possessed a vestigial mouth, mine came packed with tiny teeth perfect for tearing into fruits, berries, and just about anything I wanted. I hadn’t tried biting someone yet, but if they came between me and my current prize, I’d put them to the test. The orange’s tartyet sweet juice did a good job of revitalizing me, and I fluttered my wings while I snacked.
“Are luna moths usually that fidgety?”
“No. It’s a first shift thing. We flutter our wings normally, but she’s trying to shake her wings out and straighten them. See how she’s making a bunch of small motions rather than slow beats of her wings? Healthy luna moths will keep moving their wings, but she’s trying to get the fluids moving and otherwise prepare for her first flight.” My boss slid his hand under me, and I squeaked my protest over having been separated from my food. Before I had a chance to bite him, he bounced me a few times, and I flapped my wings to stay balanced. “You can actually see how her wings are conforming properly now.”
“And it didn’t take much orange to show visual results.”
My boss returned me to my orange, and I chomped on it, chewing only enough to swallow without choking before taking another bite. “Give her a few oranges and an hour, and I think she’ll be about ready for her first flight. Once she’s tired out enough she won’t try to fly off on us, we can take her home. I’ll make it Joel’s problem to get her shifted back to human. Do you have her silk?”
“We gathered it all,” Roger replied in a rueful tone. “It took us six hours, and there’s roughly five hundred pounds of it.”
“That’s a lot.” My boss made a thoughtful sound and crouched to have a closer look at me before asking, “What color was the silk? Texture?”
“It’s soft, it’s the same color she is, and it’s pretty slick. Tough, too. I doubt it’ll shatter once spun. She got pretty riled up when she shifted. We can have her tested for magicalaptitude. That might account for the excess. Isn’t it usually pound for pound in silk on the first shift?”
“It’s not uncommon for there to be some extra silk from the first shift, but it’s usually no more than twenty percent extra. I think she weighs about one thirty. Do you still have a blood sample?”
“We used up the entire vial we got last time running her genetics test for shifting aptitude. In good news, we know her starting point from her first real exposure to Joel, and we can get a blood sample after she shifts. Ideally, we’ll return her to Stonecreek while human. I don’t want her to be defenseless, especially not after what happened.” Roger growled, all the warning I needed he was a wolf in human’s clothing. I kept an eye on him while munching away at my orange. “Are you capable of helping her to shift?”
“I can probably manage, but she’s going to be grouchy. Us luna moths get grouchy when we’re separated from our partner, and she’s been sticking close to Joel. She hasn’t shown any symptoms of separation anxiety while at work, though, but she has been making excuses to go wander up the hill to his place—or giving him reasons to wander down the hill to her place.”
When I thought about it, I realized I hadn’t been precisely subtle about paying my neighbor visits—and I’d resorted to holding him hostage. As I had no reason to protest and wanted to encourage my neighbor to keep visiting me, I focused on devouring my orange so I could learn how to fly.
It took me a few minutes, but I conquered the piece of fruit, and I wandered around the stainless table in search of a new piece. I made it to the basket, climbed up on it, and investigated the offerings. I located an apple, and afterexperimentation, determined my tiny teeth could pierce the skin, and I helped myself. Once I reached the core, my boss intervened, turned the apple, and said, “We do not eat the cores. Those make us ill. The last thing you need is to get ill.”
With the apple vanquished, my explorations led me to a plum, but the slick texture defied my tiny teeth, and I squeaked complaints over having been thwarted. With some help from a knife, my boss peeled it for me, set my prize on the plate, and moved me over so I could enjoy it.
“Where is all that fruit going?” Roger asked in an incredulous tone.
“Just wait until she starts spitting silk, which should be starting up within the next twenty minutes, especially at her current fruit consumption rate. We’re as close to pure magic as shifters get, and it takes a lot of energy to fuel shifting back to human. Once she has enough calories for the process, she’ll expel some silk, and then I can nudge her along and make her transform. Did she shift with her clothes?”
“She did—either that or it became silk. Can her clothes do that?”
“No. She would have ended up trapped under her clothes and unhappy about it. Those of us who don’t shift with our clothes are very careful to strip first. Joel will be pleased to know she shifts with her clothes. Most of our flutter does, and it stresses him out when he’s worried about luna moths having clothing incidents.” My boss shook his head, went through the basket, and pulled out a mango, peeling it with his knife and setting it on the plate for me. “Valerie, eat this, and then we’ll see about monitoring your first silk production. After that, I’ll see if we can get you shifted so you canhave a proper examination. I know you probably want to fly, but let’s save that for when Joel can help, all right?”
I could accept waiting to fly until Joel was around. I tore through the plum and moved on to the mango, and when I finished, my boss worked his hand under me, carried me across the hospital room, and placed me on the bed with a layer of paper towels. “Once you digest, you’ll feel the need to cough. Just let it happen. You’ll cough out silk, and after about ten minutes, you’ll have your very own batch of silk to play with to your heart’s content. You won’t produce much, but we’ll collect it for you anyway. Once you’ve shifted a few times, you’ll start expelling more silk through coughing and less silk from the act of transforming.”
During the wait, my boss explained how the flutter worked, what members were expected to do, how I’d have constant visitors for at least a year until I could learn to resist roses, as he expected Joel would need to peel me off my plants in order to get me going to work for the next while. As Joel’s kidnapper and general keeper, I would be expected to keep an eye on all members of the flutter and maintain my garden for everyone’s enjoyment.
That amused me.
