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

“Let’s just run!” Felix calls faintly, already halfway across the lawn.

—

“YOU’RE SERIOUS,” FELIX says.

Lotus Valley High Student Council President Natalie Meyer grimaces, tugging one perfectly tight curl. It’s then that I remember where I heard her name before: the girl whose sweet sixteen Alex broke into to save Felix from his own curiosity. We’re currently clustered on her lawn, fanning ourselves against the boiling heat and watching her glance back at the house, where her father stands in the open doorway with crossed arms.

“Dad understands there were extenuating circumstances,” Natalie says in her sweet, high voice. “But Alex still broke a window. He’d feel better if we had this conversation outside, away from anything fragile.”

“Felix.” Alex has flushed a deep, dangerous red. Whether it’s the heat or the embarrassment, I’m not sure. “Just let it go.”

“He’s the one who should let it go!” Felix shoots back. Alex makes a valiant effort to sink into the earth’s core. “I almost got the whole party eaten. If he blames anyone, he should blame me.”

Natalie glances back at her father questioningly. He seems to think about that for a moment. And then he shrugs his massive shoulders.

Natalie, turning back to us, brightens. “Dad says we all make mistakes.”

—

ACE MARTIN, PTA president and high school band teacher, tells me right off the bat that he’ll be voting against me.

“It’s not what you think,” he explains. “I don’t have a problem with the neighbors. I used to be fascinated with ’em, really. My best friend growing up had one living under his house, scratching at his floorboards all night.” He chuckles. “I was scared to death. But I wanted to see them more than anything.”

I take a sip of the coffee he insisted on ordering me. “You never did?”

“All I ever saw under there was dirt and mice,” he says. And for a moment, he’s quiet. “I guess I always figured that if I knew what they were, what they wanted, that they wouldn’t scare me anymore. It was Maggie Williams who told me that I didn’t have to look. That I could live how I wanted, regardless of what they were doing down there. I don’t know if I can tell you how freeing that was.”

I hesitate before I ask. “Did Mayor Williams stop looking, too?”

Ace answers with the same easy magnanimity as before. But something in the air undeniably shifts.

“She says she gave that future-business up. And I believe her. But if she can see what’s coming, and she chooses not to . . . it’d be a tough pill to swallow. But I’d understand.” Something in his face darkens. “There’s not a lot you get to choose out here.”

—

“ARE YOU FAMILIAR with the entity that was born here?”

An impossible stillness falls over the stairwell of Lotus Valley Memorial Hospital. I ease myself around the corner to get a better look, Felix’s hand fluttering nervously above my shoulder. There’s a figure up ahead, bent nearly in half. In the dark, it looks massive, sketchy. Its eyes, more than half the size of its face, are a deep, solid black.

Quietly, almost inaudibly, it giggles.

“They will come,” it whispers. “And we will feed.”

Alex clears his throat. When he speaks next, his voice is nearly a squeak. “Can I put that down as a yes?”

—

“OF COURSE I’M voting for you, man.” Felix’s friend Miles barely pauses his rep, hoisting himself above the pull-up bar. “Armadillo pride, right?”

“Aw, dude.” Felix looks genuinely touched. “I’m just a reserve player.”

Miles drops to the floor to clap his shoulder. “Armadillos don’t know the difference between starter and reserve, man. I read that somewhere.”

I take a deep breath through my nose. Felix on the other hand is all but welling up.

“You should know you’re not voting for me specifically,” Felix says, his voice choked.

“But close enough,” Cassie says with a beatific smile. Miles flushes a little redder.

“You’re all coming to the scrimmage Friday, right?” he says. “You can come, too, new girl.”

It takes me a second to realize he’s serious. “Um,” I say. “I might be destroying your town Thursday.”

Miles blinks, unfazed. “Right,” he says. “But what are you doing after?”

—

IF YOU’D ASKED me to picture Mayor Williams’s personal assistant, I would have imagined the same pearls, sweater set, and smile. But Loreen Murphy is a twentysomething with a patterned undercut, a GENDER? I HARDLY KNOW HER T-shirt, and a resting boredom face that twists into a grimace as we work our way through the survey.

“Ugh.” Loreen full-body shudders. “These answers are private, right?”

They don’t strike me as the kind of person who’d summon an ages-old being upon their home. Loreen seems moderately allergic to public displays of sincerity—to the point where they’re almost too embarrassed to call a weekend with their late grandparents their happiest memory. The person who made that tape is a true believer, I think. Someone who’s completely convinced that whatever the Flood has to offer is worth all this.

But I pay close attention nonetheless. According to Theresa’s list, Loreen is one of the most frequent customers of Paul’s Pawn and Loan, just below John Jonas.

They probably shop there ironically. But still.

There’s a sudden blaring sound as a van whizzes by outside, outfitted with loudspeakers. I catch Maggie Williams’s face screen-printed on the side, beaming at me.

The time is now, a cheery voice booms. The time to take the safety of our town into our own hands. The time to bring this chapter of Lotus Valley to an end. Vote YES tonight. For more information . . .

Loreen grimaces as the voice fades around the corner. “Ugh,” they say again, with feeling. “I hate how my voice sounds recorded.”

“If it helps,” I say delicately, “I didn’t recognize you.”

“Thanks.” Loreen brightens a bit. “Sorry. Jobs, right?”

I realize, belatedly, that voting yes actually means voting no—no to the Flood, at least. “So you don’t agree with her?”

“Don’t have an opinion,” Loreen says with a shrug. “It’s not like I want to lose my house or