Page 32 of Dirty December

I would die. What if it was a trap? What if those girls find out it’s not a suit and I end up dried and preserved on the world’s biggest pushpin in the mother of all butterfly collections?

I’m dying right now, just thinking about making a move far from everything I’ve ever known, far from tradition, roots, and maybe...maybe someplace in this state, there’s one of my kind that I haven’t discovered yet. If I leave, I never will.

A shower of sparks and a loud crash startles both of us. Charred trees are crashing and falling like dominoes in the wind as drenching rain begins—too late to do any good.

“There is nothing left here,” I repeat firmly.

“You are a quitter and weakling.” Marlow glares.

“You aren’t going to out macho me! If I don’t ‘quit’ this place, our whole family will die out. Up there—there might be one of our kind.”

“Like she’d pick you.” He snorts, scoffing at my timid hopefulness.

“Yeah, I’m sure she’d rather have you, stud. Why don’t you come with me? See what kind of mothman the ladies prefer?”

“Don’t you try that dang smartass reverse psychology on me, Lenny.”

“Don’t call me Lenny. I hate that. And it wasn’t reverse psychology, you idiot! That’s what you do when you don’t want the person to do what you said! Idowant you to come with me! That wasbait.” I turn away in exasperation, my dark, solid black wings fluffed up in anger. “Hillbilly hick with wings.”

A hard tackle takes me down.

“Heard that!”

As our home and world crash down around us, my brother and I fight in the wet mud, beating the tar out of each other until we’re laugh-cry-cursing in the chilly late February air.

“Damn. Where was this rain hours ago when it would have saved us?” I shiver, wiping mud from my face.

Marlow lies next to me, panting. “I know, right.”

We both sit there, getting drenched. It’s the only way we’ll get clean.

Finally, Marlow yanks me up. “Aw. Go if you want. Yankee.”

“Don’t you do that. You know we’re not northern or southern. We’re mothmen. Come with me, Mar. Please? I really don’t want to leave you behind.”

“Lenny.” He heaves a deep sigh that ripples the feather-like hairs that make up our “fur.” “If I don’t stay, there won’t be anything to come back to when you can’t stick it up there in New York, with all those eight million people.”

I wince like he landed a blow. “Eight million? Are you sure?”

“Heard it on the television in the back of the bait shop.”

Another tree crashes, this one revealing an eerie orange glow. The fires are still burning, even in this wet, misty fog that’s covering the mountain. Another lightning bolt sizzles the air, and we have nowhere to hide, no nests, no nothing—not anymore.

Unless I’m brave enough to make something new.

“I’m going. If I don’t come back home by Christmas, you gotta come up there and find me, okay?”

“Deal.”

We stand, awkwardly gathering our stuff as the rain starts to come down harder and faster. “Do we hug?” I ask, arms dangling like limp windsocks.

“You big sap.”

But Marlow hugs me anyway.

Chapter Two: Cindy

“Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Oh my God! Ohhhh. God!”

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