Page 110 of A Light in the Dark
“That’s good. What time can we expect your call?”
“In the morning. It might be afternoon. It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed the comfort of my bed, and I intend on luxuriating in its glory.”
“You’d sleep the day away if you could,” my father accused.
“It’s true. Anyway, I’ll call you tomorrow.” After exchanging some pleasantries, I hung up, huffing and puffing over the conversation. “My father made his visit to Stonecreek conditional to seeing ghost luna moths, Joel.”
“Easily arranged,” my neighbor replied. “I’ll ask a witch to layer on some protections and get a few of my family members to show up and give them a show. And I’ll remind them that they need to avoid the town of gossips, else they get coerced into playing at being some ghosts.”
“Think your flutter will help in Stonecreek?”
“For a chance at your roses? You will not have a problem acquiring Stonecreek luna moth shifters to pay your family a visit.”
With that settled, I asked, “How did you enjoy your nap?”
“I could use another one.”
“Sleep at your own risk, Joel. If you’re passed out when we reach the border, I will be having fun at your expense.”
“Have all the fun you want. I don’t mind. Just try to leave me alive when you’re done with me.”
“That much I can manage.”
THIRTY-FOUR
Joel, this is your fault. Console me.
We losttwo hours at the border, as my return to Stonecreek apparently counted as a big deal. As Coraline suspected, there was a ridiculous amount of neglected work from the previous asshole mayor, and someone needed to deal with it. As that someone was me, I listened to the overwhelmed border guards, took notes of their grievances, and gave them the authorization they needed to get all the paperwork shipped to Stonecreek proper. Then, to make certain these issues were not issues at any of the other border crossings, I had someone dig me out the appropriate authorizations to make certain everyone could get their backlogged paperwork sent in.
They needed new authorizations every six months, and it had been over two years since the bastard had been bothered to do it.
As I was there anyway, they had plenty of copies of the forms, and I had zero interest in revisiting the situationagain in six months, I prefilled out the authorizations for all twenty-seven border crossings for the next three years, took photographs of them, apologized for the previous idiot’s neglect, and went on my way, already dreading the amount of work I needed to do.
“My father-in-law would never have thought to date the authorization forms for in the future,” Coraline informed me on our way back to the car. “That poor officer looked like she was about to cry when she realized you were handling preauths for the next three years. She wanted to hug you.”
“If I can blow two hours to save everyone a great deal of headache later, I will—and I’m going to make certain those authorizations are done in a timely fashion moving forward. That was shameful.”
Joel, who’d napped until we had to go inside, followed us, stifling yawns and nursing a coffee one of the security folks had given him. He’d even gotten it in a fancy border guard travel mug, a gift for some reason or another.
Coraline and I had one as well, but ours had tea in them, as the last thing anyone needed was us hopped on coffee.
“It really was. We’re going to hunt rabbit at the grocery store. I knew it was going to take a little longer, but it wasn’t supposed to takethatlong. We’ll make a date to hunt rabbit in a few weeks, okay?”
I nodded. “It’s probably for the best. If I have disasters like that simmering everywhere in Stonecreek, I’m going to become a nervous bundle of anxiety letting stuff like that sit.”
“Grocery store rabbit is just as tasty, and we can torment Joel through camping.”
“I enjoy camping,” Joel muttered before having another sip of his coffee. “I’m not sure why you two think I’m beingpunished with your scheming. I am not being at all punished by this idea. Will Calden and his father join us?”
“Inevitably.”
“Luna moths make excellent nightlights for reading books. In exchange, we get naptime with wolves.”
I laughed at Joel’s blatant attempt to get a chance to pet a wolf. “I’m glad I’m not the only one who likes petting wolves.”
“It seems like a fair exchange.”
“It’s fair,” Coraline confirmed. “It’s decided. We’ll do a group camping trip, and since we’ll have two city-state leaders in the same place, we can call it a work trip. As we already have the camping supplies we need, it’s a free work trip, which makes everyone happy with us. Or, at the very least, nobody will accuse us of playing on public funding.”
