Short Story Update: Catching Fireflies

Hi again! Today's a busy day!

As promised yesterday, the revisions of Catching Fireflies are out. I have just uploaded the new document onto Amazon KDP and those who've a copy of the previous version are getting an update of about... 900% more than the story was before! The story simply developed out of hand while I was working on it.

So here's to you, reviewer who wanted MORE CONTENT and NEEDED MORE INFORMATION about what happened after the initial story. Here's the continuation of a story I didn't think I'd ever write on again.

Of course there also needs to be a celebration! So in order to celebrate the new and EVEN SHINIER version of Catching Fireflies I've decided to post the first part of it (what it used to be before today) here on my blog. That's right. It's right here if you just scroll down a little.

(PS: before you lose yourself in Mairie and Dyl's world please keep in mind updates on KDP will take a while still so perhaps the actual update will only be available tomorrow. Have fun!)

Catching Fireflies

“Tell them you're catching fireflies,” Dyl's mother said. “For the lamps.”

Dyl acknowledged her words with a quick jerk of the head before he collected the glass jars she'd laid out for him and left. He swam up to the calm surface near the shore. The alibi could hold. It was summer and the fireflies aplenty this close to dusk. Dyl gathered the tiny insects until the sky darkened and the town lit to mock the stars above. The harvest was good but couldn't quite ease his tension as he waited. His stomach – empty except the few fireflies who'd found their way past his sharp, needle-like canines – quirked queasily.

The girl coming down the small hill just off the shore was about the same age as he would have been were he man, her bare footsteps light on the wet sand. Her dress and curls rustled in the evening wind.

Dyl decided to play it coy. He hid in the seaweeds, but kept the top of his head above the languid tides.

Until he heard her cry out.

Then came the next phase of the plan.

He ducked under the waves and waited to hear her call him back.

“Come back! Come back!” she cried. Her voice was muffled by the waterline as if she were speaking through a great conch. “I won't hurt you!”

Nonetheless he made her wait a while before he re-emerged. Long enough to ignite her curiosity with a spark of desperation, so that when she saw him, she would only wonder at his strangely dark-luminous eyes and boyish appearance, not worry about the too-long needle-fangs and tall dorsal fins.

When he did surface he did it slowly, as if he were shy.

“Who are you?” she asked. The calm curiosity in her voice reassured Dyl somewhat as he struggled to remember how he'd been taught to proceed.

The girl's head tilted. “You're not a mermaid.”

Dyl's tail twitched. Why wasn't she scared? At least a bit? He did have fangs and eerie-to-humans eyes after all. There was no protocol to deal with unfazed human girls.

“What's your name?” he managed.

Her forehead creased. “Why should I tell you? You haven't told me anything about you.”

Dyl wet his lips.

“I – I'm – my name is Dyl. Indyl.”

“Strange.”

It was his turn to scowl. He crossed his arms – pectoral fins jagged against the pale-blue skin of his elbows and forearms - snarled – and closed his mouth immediately when her eyes narrowed curiously. The girl laughed.

“What?” he said.

“I like it. Your name. It doesn't matter that it's strange.” A pause. “I'm Mairie.”

Dyl's arms unravelled. He couldn't help himself. He might just like her better than the others – all the others combined.

“What are you doing?” Mairie asked.

He forced the flutter of his gills to stop.

“Collecting fireflies from the reeds.” He turned to show her the jars tied to the side of his waist with seaweed rope.

“Why?”

“To light the lamps in the deep.”

“Why?”

He paused slyly. “It's dark down there.”

“Oh.”

Dyl twirled in the water and showed her his tail fins. “I could show you if you like.”

Mairie scowled. “Papa'll be angry if I leave.”

Dyl wet his lips as if that'd help the sudden dryness in his gills. How would he play this? He hadn't considered the human girl's parents because they didn't matter. They weren't his prey. What could he say to disperse her concerns?

“He'll never find you.”

Her brows creased, as if this didn't reassure her at all, and she shook her head.

Dyl gave an elaborate shrug – as if her rejection didn't sting just a tiny bit worse than the average pincer - and turned to the open water as if to leave.

“Wait!”

He glanced over his jaggily finned shoulder.

“What do I have to do to come with you?” she asked.

Dyl's heart thrilled. He would have to play this last phase of the plan gently to keep her placid.

“You'd have to grow fins and gills to breathe,” he said.

Her eyes widened. “How?”

He felt a pinch of guilt. “You can't go back if you do.”

“Back where?”

“The surface.”

“But you're here.”

“You can't ever walk the land again,” he said.

“Never?”

“Never.”

She crossed her arms. Dyl's gills heated. He thought she would reject him then, out of fear or trepidation, and also that he should have talked more about the firefly lamps and the alluring serenity of the deep and less about the everlasting dark and the Rubicon she would have to cross.

She said, “I don't mind. Daddy's gone and I don't like papa's new... friend. They always fight.”

Dyl tried to keep himself from nibbling his nails as his heart hitched.

“I could help you if you want,” he managed. “To grow fins and gills and a tail like mine.”

“You would?” And then, suspiciously, “Why?”

Dyl shrugged. His gills must have glowed, so hot did they feel.

What could he have said? That she was special? That he wouldn't hurt her? That it wouldn't hurt? But he wasn't that good a liar, and he wanted her to know the truth.

Because she was special.

Mairie contemplated Dyl a moment longer, as if his silence communicated more than any of his words could have.

And at last she gave a nod.

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