Page 38 of A Light in the Dark
“No. My mom and dad did. While they have a home in Stonecreek, they have a property here. That’s how I knew the store had gotten the roses. Dad knows I want Earth roses, and he told me about it. When he told me, he also informed me about the luna moths.”
As I didn’t want to dig out my new camera yet, I rolled down the window to take pictures with my phone. “And you’ll teach me how to take photographs of them before they wake up?”
“That seems like a reasonable request, and I can do that to keep my kidnapped victim pleased.” Joel grinned at me, waited until I finished photographing the nearby luna moths, and closed my window for me. “Depending on how badly we’re seduced by roses at the garden store, lunch might be at my parents’ place. If we escape from the garden store without having to use their home as rose storage, lunch can be at the nearby restaurant, which also happens to be a steakhouse. And if we do invade my parents’ place, we’ll be swinging by the butcher to buy steaks to throw on their grill.”
I licked my lips at the thought of grilling steak. “Propane or charcoal?”
“Charcoal, but they do have a propane one as well.”
“Can we just accept we’ll be buying too much, requiringus to use a charcoal grill? Mine’s propane. It doesn’t taste as good. I might buy a good charcoal one this year.”
If the raise panned out, a charcoal grill would be high up on my list of things to get.
He chuckled. “I’m pretty sure we can manage that, even with the trailer. If you want to grill, I’m sure my parents won’t mind an invasion. And their place has a lot of luna moths. They’re probably gathering silk. Our species of mundane luna moth is actually a solid silk producer, so after the hatch, they like to gather enough silk to make thread with. Mom spins the threads for embroidery purposes, and she has a good dyeing process.”
“Do shifters produce silk?”
“Yes, they do, although not in the same fashion as mundane luna moths. Mundanes create their silk when entering the pupae stage and are creating their cocoon. Shifters make their silk as a result of digestion. Shifter silk is glossier, a bit stronger, but equally thin compared to mundane luna moth silk. The only reason my parents bother with the mundane silk is because there aresomany luna moths in this area and they tend to be breeding year round except for a few weeks in winter, where it gets too cold for them. And the luna moths that do come out of their cocoons with unfortunate timing invade a local greenhouse designed just for them.”
I suspected I’d been lured to the town of luna moth shifters, and it had been right under my nose the entire time. I pointed in the direction of where I’d grown up. “You know the town that way?”
“The one with a fire station, a store that carries groceries in sad quantity, and a gas station?”
“There’s a liquor store in the gas station!”
“You are from there, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“We have internet here,” he informed me. “We are spoiled and cannot live without the internet.”
“This town definitely seems superior to that town. This town has luna moths and a garden store. That town has gossips, raging alcoholics, and a tendency to catch on fire.”
“We have two fire stations here. The thought of our luna moths suffering from fire is unacceptable.”
Ah-ha. “Did you start getting involved with search and rescue because your parents brought you out here and one volunteers with the fire department?”
“You are clever, my kidnapped victim. Clearly, I’m going to have to reward you with an even better steak than I anticipated. That is what happened. Dad would volunteer on his weekends, and we’d come out here. I wanted to do the fancy stuff Dad did, and he encouraged me. Once I was over the age of twelve and passed my first paramedics course, I was able to ride along with him on some jobs. I loved it.”
The idea that Joel had taken me to one of his happiest places stunned me, and I stared at the luna moths sleeping on the trees nearby. “You grew up surrounded by luna moths, then?”
“I did. You’ll get to see something magical tonight, that much I can promise. The moths should be at their most active once the sun goes down.” Joel gave me another minute or two to admire the luna moths before driving along the gravel road again. “There’s actually a paved road to get to town, but we have to go throughthattown to get to this one. And while I hadn’t known you are actually from there, I hategoing through there. I have to gas up there instead of at the station here because it takes an hour longer. When someone who doesn’t live there stops to gas up, the gossips come out to play. If they realize I’m going home, they delay me an hour trying to get info out of me when the luna moths are most active. We don’t want them in our turf. They don’t clean up after themselves.”
No one had told me about the luna moths, and I thought about paying my parents a visit to scold them both. Then again, my parents tried to avoid the worst of the gossips, mostly keeping to themselves. “Ouch. It takes an extra hour to get here from the paved road? But why?”
He came to a halt and pointed into the woods. “There’s a big ass hill with a river and waterfall there, and the road has to take the long way around it to the bridge. The bridge is in the only safe spot for such a thing. Nobody in town wants the bridge to claim lives, and the still waters are just downstream from the bridge, which is the last rescue spot before the falls. The waterfalls are lethal. There is a chance of survival, but it’s fifty-fifty.”
“My parents are the nicest people in that town, I’m just saying. I feel I have to redeem myself somehow.”
“They’d have to be to produce someone as kind as you are.”
“Genetic mutation,” I muttered.
He snickered, shook his head, and resumed driving. “I mean, you can take me there and try to convince me it isn’t that bad.”
“Joel, their internet barely handles downloading digital books. It is that bad.”
“Maybe that’s why they keep wanting to invade us. Theyknow we have good internet.” Joel narrowed his eyes. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to interrogate you about this, Valerie. We must be sure of their true threat level.”
