“Yes. One of the few blind spots for the cameras. Of course, back then we didn’t have cameras.” He rubbed one palm over her lower back, stroking her.
“Tell me everything you can remember. Shut your eyes and picture it. Sometimes that helps.”
He tensed, every muscle in his body instantly freezing. He didn’t want to relive the worst moment of his life, not so vividly. But he knew she was right. She had a point about it being easier to picture. Weren’t his nightmares always so real?
“Okay…but…” he trailed off. What could he really say?Stop me if I start to panic or shush me if I cry like a child?No. He wasn’t a child any longer and he couldn’t show such a weakness.
“I’ll be here with you. Every step of the way.” Her hands on his body tightened, the pressure comforting. She would be there, she’d pull him back from the brink of despair.
Letting his lids close was one of the scariest things he did. But he had to. It was time to let the memories out, free them so they wouldn’t weigh him down a moment longer. Twenty-five years was long enough.
He took a breath and began. “I spent the early evening catching fireflies. There were so many of them that summer…”
Light.
Darkness.
Light.
Darkness.
Eight-year-old Emery Lockwood curled his hands around the thick glass jar, gaze fixed on the firefly that buzzed and bumped into the container’s sides. The bottom part of the insect’s body flashed a pale green and then went dark. The pulsing glow brightened then faded, surging back to life before dying again, like a phoenix from the ashes. It was easy to get lost in the rhythmic pattern of the firefly while the house was quiet and his room was dark. The aroma of fresh cut grass from the gardeners’ early work still lingered. The almost tangy scent of it was calming. The bedroom floor was littered with grass clippings from when he’d tracked them in on his shoes after a successful day of bug catching.
He’d spent nearly an hour hunting down the brightest glowing firefly. He grinned.
“Emery!” The whooping shout of his twin brother disturbed the quiet peace of their bedroom.
With a heavy sigh, he pressed his nose against the cool glass of the jar. He wasn’t in any particular hurry to answer his brother’s shout. He’d much rather spend the evening watching his bug glow.
A second shout echoed up the hall, accompanied by the sound of footsteps ricocheting off the wood floor outside the room.
So much for being left alone to enjoy his firefly in peace.
“What?” he hollered back.
Fenn stomped into the room, hands on his hips, golden eyebrows slanted over hazel eyes, a nearly exact mirror to Emery’s.
“Mom says to come down and get your dinner before the guests get here.”
Emery set the jar down and rolled off his bed. “Why didn’t you just bring mine up here?”
On nights when their parents didn’t host parties, the family ate in the dining room, but when their mother and father had guests over, they were allowed to eat up in their room.
“Nana says we have to eat in the kitchen tonight,” Fenn said. “She said we made a mess last time and she doesn’t want to find a trail of ants leading to our room again. You were the one that spilled your Coke, not me.”
Emery punched Fenn’s shoulder. Although younger by three minutes, he couldn’t let his brother boss him around. Fenn always thought he was in charge, and though Emery didn’t mind most of the time, an occasional punch to the shoulder reminded his brother that Fenn was not in charge of him.
Fenn plopped down on Emery’s bed and cradled his chin in his palms. He prodded the firefly jar with an index finger, grinning as the bug’s tail lit up. “So, you coming down or what?”
His brother’s smile was infectious. He had a way about him, and Emery couldn’t help but smile too.
A flicker of movement outside their window caught Emery’s eye. Their room overlooked the thick army of stalwart oaks that bordered the property. Their sheltering darkness was penetrated only with a smattering of glowing, winking lights as fireflies wove through the trees. Emery was certain he had seen something aside from the lazy glow of the Chinese lanterns hanging on strings leading to the gardens.
Drawn by his own curiosity, he leaned toward the window, placing his small hands against the glass, which was still warm from the long gone afternoon sun. His eyes flitted across the bank of trees, looking for whatever he’d glimpsed moments before.
A shape slithered out from behind the edge of the trees, the lights from the lawn just barely illuminating the outline of a terrifyingly tall man, clothed in black, with long limbs like a spider.
Emery gasped, heart slamming violently against his ribs, as though Fenn had knocked the breath out of him with a baseball bat to the lungs.
