The Time of the Fireflies

  I slipped up the slope back to the road. Alyson was long gone, and the dark road was lonely and deserted. Hugging myself, I ran, my toes gripping my sandals so they didn’t fall off. I was wetter than a drowned rat.

  When I got to Main Street with its old-fashioned streetlamps and hanging flowerpots, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fireflies, the way they’d swarmed me. Had they really been leading me down the bridge so I’d fall off — maybe truly drown this time? That seemed impossible, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more I was supposed to know. Something I’d missed.

  I’d seen the bridge whole and new, hadn’t I? Was it just a trick of the moon — the trick of a thousand lightning bugs? I remember being dizzy, almost sick, like being in a tunnel, traveling, and picking up speed.

  I reached the edge of our soggy front lawn and my feet skidded. Caught my balance right before my bare knees hit the stone walkway to the front door. My clothes stuck like glue; my hair dripped in fat clumps. Mamma was gonna yell at me. Daddy would ground me for the rest of the week for taking off like I did. And for yelling at them and staying out so long. When I pushed open the kitchen door and saw the clock, I gulped. It was almost nine.

  “Larissa?” It was my daddy from the kitchen.

  I shut the door behind me. “Um, yeah.”

  He came around the corner and stopped at the cash register. Rubbing a hand over his bare head, he crammed his baseball cap back on top of his messy hair, then retreated back to the brightly lit kitchen.

  I followed him, shivering so hard from the rain and my encounter with Alyson that my teeth chattered. “Is Mamma super mad?”

  Daddy scratched his chin, a shadow of stubble along his jawline. “She went to bed already. Being on her feet all day wears her out. Getting worse now that the baby is getting closer.”

  I nodded, chewing on my lips.

  He gave me a parental stare. “I was just about to get the rescue squad out to look for you. You look like a drowned nutria, shar.”

  Water trickled down my neck, rain or tears, I wasn’t sure. “I didn’t mean to stay out so long. Two hours went by like ten minutes.”

  “That so?” The kettle started screaming on the stove, and he reached over to turn off the gas, then leaned back against the counter.

  “I’m not lying. It’s true.”

  He cocked his head at me, and his deep brown eyes seemed to see right into my mind. I squirmed, tugging at my damp shorts. “Guess time doesn’t mean much when you’re twelve. Here and then gone, but there’s no rewinding the clock to make up for being out past dark.”

  “Is Mamma gonna …” I started. “Will she ground me?”

  “Don’t think so. She doesn’t realize just how long you were out all by yourself.” His eyes pierced mine. “But where you been, Larissa?”

  “Just down to the bayou,” I said vaguely. “I saw lightning bugs, too. Before it started to rain.”

  “Maybe they’ll be back tomorrow and we can take a jar to catch some.” Daddy reached over to rub my arms. “Let’s hustle you into a bath and then bed. Customers come mighty early in the summer.”

  Upstairs, we were both smothering yawns while I started the water. The sound pounded into the porcelain tub as I grabbed my nightgown from my room.

  “Wind’s coming up,” Daddy said, thumbing through the stack of towels in the cupboard. He handed me one and shut the window tight. “Come say good night when you’re done.”

  I nodded, breathing a sigh of relief for not being in too much trouble. I peeled off my wet clothes and dumped them in a pile. The heat of the water steamed the mirrors, and the bath rug was cozy under my toes.

  After I climbed in, I leaned back, shut off the spigot, and closed my eyes.

  A whirl of images floated through my mind. Lightning bugs dancing along my arms. Shadowy trees. The shimmering bridge under the moonlight. Alyson Granger, her eyes big and round and spooked.

  Why would she believe I would jump into the muddy, creepy water? Alyson was crazy, that’s what. She probably hoped I was going to jump and came over to spy on me so she could report back to Tara and the rest of them.

  My parents’ earlier fight rumbled through my head, so I sank deeper into the water. All I could hear was the swooshing, echoey sound the bathwater made. Soon my knees got cold because the tub was short, so I washed my hair and ran the faucet again to rinse it clean.

  After wrapping myself up, I dried my hair with a second towel, and then leaned over the sink toward the mirror. My hair was getting long, way past my shoulders now. I’d been growing it for months on purpose. If I turned my head just so, you couldn’t see the scar at all.

  I had pretty much perfected my posture, but Mamma was always nagging at me to forget what happened. Trim my hair. Style it. Stand up straight and look folks in the eye when they talked to me. She drove me crazy. She was such a hypocrite. I could only hope the new baby would distract her from nitpicking so much.

  Leaning into the mirror, I ran my finger along the folded pleat of skin and winced. I wondered if plastic surgery could hide it or fix it. My stomach did a jump as the image of T-Beau from school came into my mind. I dropped my curtain of hair around him, too, even when he tried to talk to me during algebra. I forced myself to hate him. He had come along with the other boys the day of that stupid game of Truth or Dare, and sat on the pilings and watched. The day Alyson and Tara pushed me in. The day I became “that girl with the scar.”

  Some days it was hard to hate him too much when he glanced over at me in class — and then pretended he hadn’t.

  I pulled my nightgown over my head, drained the tub, and combed out my hair. When I got to my parents’ door, Daddy placed a finger on his lips. “Mamma’s asleep; let’s leave her be.”

  That was fine by me; I didn’t say anything as Daddy hugged me good night. He dropped a kiss on my head. “Better dry your hair before you go to sleep, shar. Don’t want to catch cold.”

  I lifted my chin, biting my lips as I asked him the question I’d wanted to for so long. “Do you think my scar is very ugly? Do you think a doctor could make it disappear?”

  He gave me a sideways smile. “I know you’re the prettiest girl in town, shar. Besides Mamma, of course.”

  I thought about their argument earlier. “You’re paid to say that.”

  “Hey, nobody pays me much of anything, girlie.” He leaned against the doorjamb. “Scars do fade a bit. But maybe down the road you won’t want it to go away. It’ll be a memory of the person you were, the person you are. You’re not gonna be afraid of anything. And you’re not vindictive. That scar is a badge of honor.”

  “There’s one thing you’re forgetting, Daddy.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Girls aren’t supposed to have scars.”

  “Who says?”

  “Everybody!”

  “I’d like to know who everybody is. I’d like to meet them someday.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re so predictable, Daddy.”

  “Larissa,” he said, turning serious. “That scar just proves you’re a warrior. You can get through anything. There are worse things in life than a little bitty scar.”

  “But it’s not small at all —”

  My daddy held up a hand. “You’ll understand one day. And one day, that scar will hardly be noticeable. Because there’re so many other things that will be more important to you. I can promise you that.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that promise.”

  He grinned at me. “Come back and talk to me when you’re thirty,” he said, teasing me, but dead serious, too. “And we’ll see where you are.”

  I shook his hand, hard. “It’s a deal. But I probably won’t wait until I’m thirty to talk to you again.”

  He scratched his chin as he stared up at the ceiling. “Yup, tomorrow’d be nice, now that I think about it. Seein’ how you’re my favorite daughter.”

  “Oh, Daddy. I’m your only daughter.”

  He
waggled his eyebrows. “See you in the morning for our rounds.”

  After he closed the master bedroom door, the antique store settled into night. A little creaky, but mostly quiet. Once inside my own room, I couldn’t hear anything except raindrops splattering the window ledge. Pinpricks of light from Bayou Bridge’s neighborhoods pierced the black night. I imagined the lightning bugs hiding out under the elephant ears in cozy nests during bad weather, sleeping while recharging their light batteries.

  Jumping on the bed, I rubbed down my hair with the towel and tried to imagine what it would be like to have a baby brother. Mud pies and dump trucks and sandboxes. Wrestling matches and boys in the front yard playing Kick the Can. On the other hand, a sister meant dolls and dressing up and experimenting with hairstyles. Squealing slumber parties and baking cookies on a rainy day. I guess I could like either one. I was sure Daddy wanted a son. Did he wish I was a boy? I’d never thought about that before. He said the scar didn’t matter, but I knew it would matter less on a boy than a girl.

  Pressing my cheek into the pillow, I pictured Alyson Granger’s baby-blue eyes in my mind. Wild in the storm. Scared, too. She didn’t seem mad. She didn’t seem like she hated me. But maybe that was just her faking me out, getting me to trust her so she and Tara could be mean again.

  I could still feel her fingers on my arm. Had she really been yanking me back from the bayou’s swirling waters — or did she have ulterior motives?

  The voice on the telephone floated through my mind. “Find the fireflies.” I held my pillow to my stomach, knowing I’d found them. Or they had found me. The rest of the girl’s instructions flooded over me, the strange intensity in her voice when she whispered, “Trust the fireflies.”

  Throwing off the blankets, I stuck my feet on the floor, staring out the window. What in heck did that mean? Trust the fireflies? How do you trust a flying insect?

  I pictured the lightning bugs earlier this evening, dancing among the elephant ears. Their lights a thousand tiny golden lamps. A delicious shiver rushed down my spine when I thought about what it felt like to walk among the fireflies.

  I had to go back to the bayou. Back down by the creepy broken bridge. Tomorrow. As soon as the sun started to sink.

  Half an hour later, I still lay flat on my back, rigid as a board, thinking about how much I did not want to go down to the broken pier again, even if I knew I had to. I dreaded the shadows at dusk and the giant cypress trees that whispered in the night. What if Alyson showed up and got the rest of the kids from school to hide out and scare me all over again?

  I rolled over, burying my head in my pillow. The voice of the girl on the phone kept slamming into my brain. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

  What was she talking about? That seemed crazy. But the girl had seemed so urgent, even frantic. She told me to trust the fireflies. She seemed so confident, like she knew things I didn’t know. But didn’t she know about the accident where I almost died? Didn’t she know I was terrified?

  Besides, how did we even know each other? Over the phone it was hard to tell how old she was, but she was definitely older than me. I couldn’t think of a single older girl from school or town that I knew. She’d called on a disconnected phone and refused to tell me her name.

  My pillow grew hot. If this was some kind of trick, I didn’t want to be the biggest baby in town, but there was no way in heck I was going to be pushed off the bridge again.

  I’d have to be prepared. If someone tried to push me, I’d have to grab their arms or their shirt and pull them in with me. I knew I could do it. I’d be ready for them.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance along the bayou.

  A dog barked in someone’s backyard.

  I swallowed hard, wishing I’d grabbed a drink of water, but I just pressed my eyelids tighter as the sensation of falling hit me once more. The heavy, murky river water rushing up my nose, burning my throat as I sank into the sickening darkness.

  Later, the night of the accident, I’d woken up in a hospital bed, Mamma and Daddy staring at me, white gauze wrapped around my head. Their faces floated in front of my eyes, and then Daddy put a hand on my forehead. His lips moved, saying something I couldn’t hear. Water clogged up my ears, sloshed inside my brain. I wanted someone to fix it, but I fell asleep again.

  Next time I opened my eyes, a nurse bustled in with a stack of food trays.

  “So,” I asked softly, pushing myself higher in bed as she fluffed my pillows. “Was it an alligator?”

  The nurse blinked, puzzled, then her face cleared. “You mean that cut you got on your face? No, wasn’t an alligator. It was the old, rusted nails on those ancient pilings that got you good. Doctors stitched you up, gave you a tetanus shot, and you’ll be good as new. Right as rain.”

  She set down my lunch tray and I gazed at the cold milk carton, the red squares of Jell-O quivering in a glass bowl. Nails had ripped at my face like knives. A whole mess of nails sticking out of the broken pilings. The pain had been unbearable. I remembered hearing voices shouting and yelling, but it was all a blur as I’d sunk my way to the bottom of the bayou.

  The next day, I was helped into a wheelchair and came home.

  I never knew what Daddy had said to me when I first woke up and realized I hadn’t died. I wanted to know, but I felt stupid asking him. Like I was a little kid that needed reassuring.

  Once I was alone in my bedroom, I pulled off the white bandage, piece by sticky piece. My hair had dried ratty and greasy, but Mamma said we’d wash it the next day.

  “Don’t mess with it,” she’d told me. “We can’t get the stitches wet.”

  But once I was in my nightgown and she was finally gone, I got a mirror and peeled back the gauze. I just had to see.

  I could hardly breathe when I saw the angry black stitches. My cheek had swelled up like a balloon. Purple-and-green bruises covered my skin like I’d been punched in the face. The scar was repulsive, and I was hideous. For weeks after the accident, I cried so much I thought I’d be sick.

  One night when Mamma hadn’t shut the bedroom door tight, I could hear my parents talking. I peeked through the crack. Mamma was in a fury over the kids who’d taunted me on the bridge. She’d said the kids deserved to be arrested and put in juvenile detention. Daddy had tried to calm her down, but she refused to be soothed.

  * * *

  I didn’t know whether Mamma’s anger made me feel better or not. Mostly, I just wanted her to be quiet and stop ranting. Let me cry in peace. Let me hate them all on my own.

  I didn’t know I’d fallen asleep until Daddy burst in the next morning. “Wake up, sleepyhead! Sun’s shining and it’s getting hotter than firecrackers already.”

  My throat felt thick and my eyes were crusty. “I’m tired,” I said, pulling the sheet up over my head.

  “It’s late, shar. We got customers in ten minutes. Had to open up shop all by myself.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “You were snoring to beat the band. Figured I’d let you sleep since it’s summer vacation, after all. We’re not going to work you like a horse every single day. Just every other day.” He laughed at his own joke. “Well, hurry up and get dressed. Mamma’s not gonna be happy keeping your breakfast hot. Besides, cold pain perdu isn’t good for the soul. She has a doctor appointment today, so you’ll have to do the cash register for a couple hours while she drives into St. Martinville.”

  I raised my arms and let them drop limp again. “See how tired I am, Daddy. I can hardly move.”

  He lifted an eyebrow, then winked. “Up and at ’em, Larissa. We’re on a tight schedule today.”

  “Okay, okay!” I rolled out of bed as he went downstairs, stubbing my toe on the corner of the bed as I whispered, “Find the fireflies. Trust the fireflies.” I could tell it was going to be a peculiar day.

  When I got downstairs, the OPEN sign was turned out, the front door unlocked, and Mamma was drying the breakfast dishes.

  “Six weeks left
, Luke,” she said as my daddy drained the last of his coffee. “What’re we going to do when I’m tending the baby and Larissa is back in school?”

  “Maddie, can this conversation wait until tonight?”

  “You’re always putting me off. We can’t afford part-time help. This baby is coming at the wrong time.”

  Daddy put his hand on her shoulder as she slumped at the sink. “Babies aren’t usually convenient, are they?”

  I glanced sideways to watch them, wondering if they were still mad or what. You can never tell with parents.

  Daddy went on, “Babies come when they come. We sure been waiting a long time. We’ll just make the best of it.”

  “You, Luke Renaud, are the most optimistic person I ever met,” Mamma said.

  I could tell she wanted to stay mad. Or at least she didn’t want to shake off her pessimism. Mamma was a glass-half-empty sort of person and my daddy was the opposite. Everything to him was half-full — even if it might be barely half-full when we didn’t get a single customer into the store some days.

  I thought about the two baby boys my mamma had years ago that didn’t live past a few hours. I remembered Mamma locking herself in her room, hearing her crying when I came home from school. All those trips to the doctor. Friends coming over. I ate a lot of chicken soup and there were plates of cookies all over the house.

  “Are you going to find out if it’s a girl or a boy?” I asked now, spearing a piece of the fried cinnamon bread with my fork and soaking it in syrup.

  “Larissa!” Mamma cried. “I swear, sometimes you sneak around like a ghost. What’re you doing listening to our private conversation?”

  “Just obeying you by eating breakfast.”

  “No sass, my girl.” Mamma raised an eyebrow at me. “I’ll leave the sink plugged in so you can do your own dishes when you’re done eating. Think we got potential customers coming down the street.”

  I nodded, my mouth full so I wouldn’t have to answer her.

  “Polish off the grits in the saucepan,” Mamma added, running a hand through her flyaway hair. I hoped she wouldn’t pin it back. I knew she got real hot when she was working, but still, it made her so dowdy.