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

vast the space is. By the light of our phones, the cavern walls look marbled, shaped by time, and maybe by the ocean that used to rush through it. Next to those walls, the staircase looks jarringly man-made.

I watch the corners of my vision as closely as I can, even as I take Felix’s elbow and pull him toward me.

“Don’t tell him how to feel.” The words are barely a breath. Kind of hard to have a private conversation on an almost silent staircase. “Just be there.”

“I thought I was supposed to leave him alone,” Felix mutters.

“I’m talking about something different,” I hiss. “Listen. I don’t know what he went through with the Mockingbird. But I can tell he’s terrified. And it’s okay that you’re scared for him. But don’t make him comfort you.”

He flinches, and I’m pretty sure I should have shut up about ten words back. But the next move I see from him is a nod.

Felix shakes my hand off as he slips around Cassie, and then all I see the rest of the way down is his back. I can’t hear whether or not he says anything to Alex, but I can see their shoulders, nearly touching.

I think of the distant look in Cassie’s eyes, back at the movie theater. And I take my own advice. Sometimes people are counting on you to notice when something’s wrong.

Closing the distance between us, I slip my arm into the crook of her elbow.

She glances over, frowning slightly. “What’s that for?”

I shrug. “Best to stick together.”

I can feel Cassie’s eyes on me, but I keep my gaze ahead. And after a moment, she starts to talk.

“It wasn’t as bad for me as it was for Alex,” she says softly. “But she likes the loners. And I wasn’t a nice kid. I told my classmates’ futures without their permission. So no one really talked to me. Just her.”

I wait for her to elaborate. But as usual, she breezes on. “I was in fifth grade when she went legitimate. I hoped I’d never hear her voice again. But I already knew it was a foregone conclusion.”

“Well.” I shrug. “We’re here to change some foregone conclusions, aren’t we?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see her smile. There I go again. Giving really pretty comfort I can’t seem to apply to myself.

At the very least, I’m not scared—at least, not as scared as I should be. These past few months, I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that something is dogging my footsteps. But whether it’s something in my head or something waiting at the end of this hall, it’s the same difference. If I get caught, I get caught. Either way, I get to stop running.

We reach the bottom of the stairs.

The cavern feels a lot like the Flood. Far too vast to see fully, but every time I breathe in, I feel all the years behind it, all the shifts of time and earth that created it. We draw ourselves into a tighter formation, listening. The air barely registers our presence. But something tells me we’ve been noticed all the same.

There’s another sign, in those same neatly printed letters.

please make yourselves comfortable.

And a little lamp clicks on, revealing a couch, two armchairs, and a water cooler, all as incongruously modern as the staircase. There’s a little rectangle of white propped up behind it like a tiny film set, a halfhearted illusion of a wall. A waiting room, right in the middle of the cavern.

Alex lets out a high, involuntary sound, not quite a laugh. Felix glances away sharply, as if he’s intruding, and I have a sudden, fierce memory of Gaby’s face the first time she saw me cry. How flat-out terrified she looked. How angry she got when I looked up and saw her and laughed until I choked. I forgot she used to think I had my shit together, too.

Sometimes in my head, I soften her edges too much. I forget her learning curves and her missteps and how she couldn’t watch her mouth, even for a second. I don’t have to soften anything. Thinking of that dumbstruck, slack-jawed face, I love her so much I can barely breathe.

I catch Felix’s eye and jerk my head toward Alex, exasperated. And somehow I keep from screaming into my sleeve when he goes for the awkward shoulder pat.

Carefully, I sink onto the couch.

Felix settles on one of the arms next to me, and Cassie hovers on my other side. Alex stays standing. And we count down the seconds until three p.m.

The feeling of the room shifts slowly. It’s a familiar sensation now. Like standing at the edge of a wave, bearing down.

I breathe in deep until it fills my chest. I’m used to the Flood’s presence now. This doesn’t seem that different. But something about it feels—smaller.

The lights dim, and the cavern ahead crumbles into the gathering dark. We stand, move forward. And something stirs.

“Welcome, dear customer,” calls my mother’s voice. “What do you yearn for?”

I start to move. It’s not intentional, it just happens. But there’s an arm, firm and unyielding, in my path. Cassie’s.

A chill climbs up the floors and into my blood. I look to Cassie, who’s closest to me. As dark as it is, I see enough of her face to feel very sure that it wasn’t my mother she just heard.

And it’s like my feet leave the ground. Like I’ve come unhooked, and I’m spinning.

“Hi there,” I say hoarsely. “Big fan.”

She chuckles, a low, rolling sound that could never be Mom’s. “You’re a clever one, aren’t you? I like the clever ones.”

Strange how my body’s still standing here untouched, like my insides aren’t collapsing in on themselves. I wonder if the others can feel it, too—the vacuum around me, the gaping black hole. I knew this already, knew it wasn’t Gaby on that tape, but now here it is, undeniable, in front of me. It wasn’t Gaby. It was never Gaby. Gaby is