Stray Fears - Gregory Ashe Page 0,29
that they were located in Parson’s Hollow, Pennsylvania.
Ok. Maybe not my best idea.
Except I did kind of feel like I was on the right track. Kennedy had looked at me kind of crazy when I’d asked about local monsters, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Encyclopedias and generic web searches were going to give me very general answers. What I needed was something specific. If this . . . thing had been in the area for a while, then someone, at some point, must have written something down.
I did another search, this time for Louisiana folklore, and carried my books to a bench outside the library. Then I started making calls. The woman at the Louisiana Folklore Society hung up on me. The man at the Bayou Culture Collaborative treated me to every English swear word in the book, and quite a few French ones that I had to guess on. I worked my way down the list, hitting every historical and cultural-anthropological society (Kennedy would have been proud of my new vocabulary) I could find. The good news was that historical-cultural-anthropological societies didn’t exactly have their phones ringing off the hooks, so it was pretty easy to get through. The bad news was that one gentleman taught me the expression, I’ll fuck your face off and then shit down your mouth hole if you call here again. Which, it seemed to me, was an extreme response to a question about magic blue fireflies that came out of people’s mouths and sometimes made them commit murder.
When I got through to a woman at New Orleans Ghost Tours and Beignets and Real Sweet Tea, I learned why.
“It’s the voodoo, honey.”
“No, this is about a firefly thing. Wait. Are you telling me this is voodoo?”
“No.” She blew out a breath. “Honey, nothing is voodoo, not really. I’m saying you wouldn’t believe how many people call trying to figure out how to make a doll so they can stick a pin in their girlfriend’s hoohaw and that kind of thing. It’s just crazy. Doesn’t matter if you have the patience of a saint—you work in a Louisiana, anything to do with history, even a place like this one, and you’ll have crazies calling you until you’re ready to pull your hair out.”
“But this is a legitimate call. I’m doing research.”
“About a firefly thing.”
“A blue firefly thing.”
“That can make people chop each other up.”
“Well, I don’t know. That’s the whole point of doing research. I’m trying to find out.”
“Can’t help you, honey. My auntie had a touch of the sight, but all I can do is tell if water is fizzy or not.”
“Can’t everyone do that?”
“I mean before I drink it.”
“Yeah, but you can see the bubbles.”
“Is that all?” she asked.
“I guess.”
She disconnected before I finished both words.
The October day had warmed up considerably; grabbing my books, I moved down a few benches into the shade of a black oak that still had its leaves. The DuPage Parish Library was in a neighborhood known as Fogmile: stolidly middle class, clapboard-sided shotguns with neat lawns and ten-year-old sedans and plenty of minivans. A young couple pushed a stroller on the sidewalk opposite; it wasn’t until they got closer that I saw the teacup Yorkie where a baby should have been. I snapped a picture and sent it to Richard.
He sent back a laughing emoji and, Glad you’re feeling better.
Sorry about this morning. I love you.
Thank you for saying that. I love you too. What do you want for dinner tonight?
I grinned in spite of myself. That was Richard. Shrimp boil?
Anything for you and then a kissy emoji.
I sent a kiss back.
My next search was for psychics. I limited myself to DuPage and St. Tammany. I didn’t want to drive into New Orleans, in the first place, and in the second, I didn’t want to have to deal with the fakes who catered to tourists. I caught the sound of that thought and recognized, again, how far I’d shifted in a few days; just a week before, I would have told anyone who asked that all psychics were fake. Now I was just worried about quality control.
Like historical societies and people selling timeshares, most psychics didn’t seem to be overwhelmed with phone calls. The reactions I got to my question, though, were interesting.
The first three—all of them using horrifying faux-Romani accents—promised they could tell me everything I wanted to know about blue fireflies if I gave them my credit card