The Valley and the Flood by Rebecca Mahoney (i wanna iguana read aloud TXT) 📕

I clear my throat, hard. “So I still don’t. I never know where to start.”

Felix and Alex glance to each other. But Cassie’s gaze hasn’t wavered.

“What did they say?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. There’s a little ripple in the air, a shiver running through each of those dark branches. “I think they wanted to tell me something, but I didn’t understand it. But I asked if they planned to destroy this place. And they said yes.”

Felix laughs, just barely loud enough that I can hear the panic. When he speaks, it’s quiet. “Guys. Let’s give this up.”

Cassie’s outline quivers. But Alex speaks first. “We’ve talked about this.”

“And now we’re talking about it again,” Felix says. “We’re not getting those votes tonight. And even if we do, you heard Rose. They’re not going to stop.”

“We’ll keep trying,” I say.

“That’s not enough for me,” Felix bites out. “My entire family lives here. And they won’t leave without me. I’ve asked.”

Alex’s eyes soften a little. “You don’t have to stay, Felix.”

Felix looks away, his shoulders hunched. “I’m not leaving without you, either. And I’m guessing you won’t.”

Alex doesn’t answer right away. I wonder if Felix can see what I can—that his resolve is there, fastened into place as firm as he can make it. But that maybe, just a little, he wishes that it wasn’t.

“You know I have to do this,” Alex says.

Felix drags a hand through his hair with a choked laugh. “You don’t have anything to make up for! You were a child! You asked for help! That’s what you were supposed to do!”

“I do.” Alex’s voice is still firm. But he looks far younger than he did just a second ago. “I was the one who made it the way it was.”

Felix opens and closes his fists, like he’d like nothing more in the world than to shake sense into Alex. But his voice is quiet. Gentle. “How do you figure that?”

Alex doesn’t answer right away. His gaze, still a little lost, shifts to me. Maybe because I’m in the same boat now. Or because it’s easier than looking at Felix.

“I was sick long before my neighbor ever found me,” he says. “Complications from my asthma, mostly. Rarely anything serious. But enough that it feels like my whole childhood was doctor’s offices and emergency rooms.

“And this particular time—well, I didn’t make the connection then,” he continues. “I guess there’s no way I could have, until I was older. And it was such a little thing. It shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did. But I was maybe six or seven years old and getting discharged from the hospital after my usual winter pneumonia. And the nurse said something like . . . I don’t remember exactly what it was.”

I nod as he pauses. Though it seems pretty clear to me that he remembers it word for word. At length, he presses on. “She said, ‘You’re becoming quite the regular, aren’t you? It’s a good thing your father can take time off work.’”

Alex swallows. “It’s amazing, the things people say to sick kids. Like they’re doing it intentionally.”

“She didn’t know what she was talking about,” Felix says.

Alex’s face softens. “I know that now. But back then, it flipped a switch I couldn’t turn off. I started noticing all the little sacrifices Dad made. I started looking at the bills. We were learning about symbiotic relationships in science class that year. I learned that a parasite is something that feeds off other animals to survive. So that’s why I looked at him one night and thought, What if I’m a parasite?

“And . . .” He shrugs helplessly. “That neighbor came to me that year and took the form of a parasite. That can’t be a coincidence, right? It had to have been born from what I was feeling.”

I can tell two things from the look on Felix’s face: that he’d forgive anything Alex ever did, and that he understands, maybe because of this, that Alex might not believe what he wants to say right now. So I step in.

“You couldn’t have controlled what you were feeling. Especially when someone forced their own feelings onto you,” I say. “My th—Someone I know says it’s hard to admit that you didn’t have control over something. But he says it’s really freeing to finally accept.”

I can tell that argument doesn’t fully land—I can see it on Alex’s face. This is the same person who told me I didn’t ask for this. I wonder if it would be hypocritical of me to remind him of that.

“I know it wasn’t my fault. Or Ms. Jones’s,” he says. “I just . . . want to be able to do something about it next time.”

“You have,” Felix says. “Over and over, for so many people. Me included. And you don’t have to stay here just because you feel—”

“No.” Alex shakes his head. “It’s not all because of that.”

“What do you mean?” Felix says.

“I know this doesn’t make sense,” Alex says, “but just evacuating isn’t enough.”

“I get that you think that,” Felix says. “I want to understand. But I don’t.”

“You would if you could see it.” He barely shifts. But I can tell he’s talking to Cassie now. “It’s going to be really bad, isn’t it? If we can’t stop it.”

I turn to face her. She’s not looking at me, or at Alex. When she speaks, she sounds far away. Like a voice at the bottom of a well.

“If we can’t stop it,” she says, “it’s more than just the end of this town. And if the Flood fully crosses our border? Then what I saw is inevitable.”

I take a breath, and it fills my lungs with that same cold, humid air that I’m beginning to recognize. Every one of us is still, hanging on Cassie’s words. And so is the Flood.

By then I notice the low rumbling sound by the door, slowly building. As I turn my head toward it, I feel a weight