Page 13 of Strange Lights

“I don’t think you’re magical,” I tell Eldi. She glares at me. “No offense. But if you ever discover you are, just remember the most important rule: You need a tether.”

Back when I practiced magic, I had a gift for tethering. Distance and intimacy meant little to me. I could tether anyone with ease, like the world’s most magical parasite. But I try to follow the polite convention, and I don’t have anyone to tether with now, so in the end I don’t think it’s worth the risk to mess with. Death by entropy is not on my to-do list today.

I can almost feel it, at the far edges of my mind, that call to try magic anyway. Come here, open that doorway, come back. Familiar as the closest family, like old friends beckoning, trying to lure me in. I’m smart enough to know that if I crack myself open, let any magic through, I might fall into a trap of my own making. But I can’t say the siren call isn’t tempting.

“No magic,” I say, making up my mind that I can’t be trusted not to push too far. “Class dismissed,” I tell Eldi and Manny. Bandit has already scurried off to gather up whatever small things fell earlier, an addition for his treasure hoard.

I stare both vacuums down. “The undead raccoon cleans more than you two; you should be ashamed. Now take me to your leader,” I joke.

Maybe they’ll roam somewhere and show me something important. They don’t. They seem content to sit peacefully now that I want them to move. Eventually, I lock them in the basement cell I use for transporting and holding dangerous items and creatures. It’s the safest spot for them. Nothing has ever escaped that cage. And though I confidently told Calvin they wouldn’t murder us, the chances are never zero. I try to bring the tablet down too⁠—just in case. But Eldi lets me know in no uncertain terms that I’d lose a finger or two if I tried to pry it away from her.

Calvin’s still in his Airstream when darkness falls, and I give up on the vacuum investigation and decide to call it an early night. I keep remembering the Jeep, but I haven’t seen it since early afternoon, and I made sure we weren’t tailed to our campsite. I try in vain to reassure myself that it was someone coincidentally traveling the common highway in the same direction. Maybe they caught a glimpse of Manny and were curious. Maybe I saw several similar-looking Jeeps and I’m being paranoid to assume it was the same one each time. It’s too many maybes in a row for my comfort, though. No matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise, I feel like I’m being watched. It’s got to be the cornfields and one too many horror movies. Today I got another email from my mystery contact too. More cryptic bullshit, more high strangeness. None of these thoughts are conducive to a good night’s rest.

Eldi snores in her loft while I lie awake under the covers and hope if I stay still enough, I’ll succumb to sleep eventually. There’s the smallest of noises. I think I’m imagining things. But it happens again. A scraping and a small click. The door to the basement, the secret panel, opens by increments with a faint creak. Thank fuck I never put WD-40 on the hinges like I’ve been meaning to for years.

I look out from under my lashes. I can’t do anything about my heart pounding in my ears, but I keep my breathing even, slow, steady. A patch of shadow breaks away from the darkness at the base of the open basement door. It’s one of the fucking robot vacuums.

I almost sigh with relief, tensing to throw off the covers and lock the thing back in the basement. But then the second one appears at the top of the dark doorway into my room. Somehow it’s moving along the wall as if unaffected by the basic laws of gravity. Now I understand Calvin’s uneasiness. There’s something very wrong, something unnatural about those vacuums. They are alive. They are creatures. Every instinct tells me to run screaming out of the Winnebago, but the memory of being effortlessly pushed aside during my earlier experiments holds me back. I’m no longer sure survival is a given if these things are determined.

At first, I don’t understand where the extra shadows are coming from, the threads of darkness that swirl all around the room. My heart stutters as I realize long appendages are extending from the vacuum on the ground and exploring the space, reaching into every corner before retracting silently back into the vacuum shells like some sort of octopus-turtle hybrid.

All at once, the one on the wall has a full set of skittering jointed legs, and it scuttles spiderlike onto the foot of my bed. The second one performs a nearly identical metamorphosis and scrambles up the wall and all the way across the ceiling to dangle directly above me; it moves almost too quickly to see.

I always thought I’d fight if something like this happened to me. Turns out I freeze like a fawn. Maybe if I stay under the covers, I’ll be safe. I’m like a child; if I can’t see the monsters, they can’t see me. But I can’t stop looking. And they look back.

The one on the ceiling is watching me. It lowers its vacuum carapace, suspended on a silvery wire, as thin as spider silk, hovering right above my face. I’m afraid to close my eyes. I’m afraid to open them, so I stay frozen, my eyes slit open.

The one at my feet gently pushes and prods at my leg, as if it were trying to determine what I am and whether I’m a threat. It’s like a predator sniffing at lunch and deciding whether it’s hungry yet. I struggle to breathe steadily and keep my limbs from twitching. The one on the ceiling is inching closer and closer, a hairsbreadth away from brushing a metallic limb against my cheek, when Eldi lets out an immense snuffle.

Both vacuums move toward her faster than I can blink, scrabbling crab-like with surprising agility. It’s then that I find I can move again, shaken out of my paralysis because I’m not letting them get Eldi. I grab for a broom that’s propped by the bedroom door because I was too lazy to put it away earlier, and now it’s the only excuse for a weapon close at hand. What a stupid mistake. If I make it through this, from now on, a knife will go under my pillow, a baseball bat under the bed, pepper spray in the nightstand. Something.

What an elementary mistake, Regina. This is why weapons never come off, even when you sleep.

I promise myself if I survive tonight, I won’t be so defenseless again.

Only a second or two has passed, but by the time I reach the front of the Winnebago, both little vacuums are hovering over Eldi. One scans her with a green light, exactly like the tablet did earlier.

“Get away from her!” I shout before I can think better of it.

If vacuums could startle, these do. I flinch as one flings one of its tentacle extensions against my throat. Its glint in the dim light and its cold steel sting tell me it’s some kind of blade. I don’t back down, though I should. I’m outmatched, and we all know it.

“If you hurt her, I’ll destroy you,” I whisper, afraid to even breathe too loudly as I feel the cold metal, sharp against my throat.

It’s an empty threat, and they must know that too.

The two little robots make the softest of clicking noises, then a chorus of musical notes, singing back and forth, as if they were communicating with each other. I can almost imagine the argument they’re having.

Can you believe this human? I should get rid of it, the one holding me at knifepoint might be saying.

Eldi snuffles again, and Goat falls from her grasp, tumbling to the floor. With a spurt of static, the Winnebago radio switches on, softly playing a song. Bob Marley croons “Three Little Birds” over the speakers⁠—a soothing background noise, a not-so-subtle message not to worry about a thing.

The machine not holding a knifelike appendage to my throat makes a purring noise, reaches a tendril, and gently strokes Eldi’s face. Put that away; you’re scaring the human, I imagine it chiding its fellow.

The other suddenly retracts its knife arm, still chittering and singing to itself. I huff in air with relief as an appendage picks up Goat and tucks him neatly back under Eldi’s arm.

My worry for Eldi evaporates as the two little vacuums launch off the bed in a whirl of coiling octopus arms and flashing metal. One of the vacuums pauses, beckoning me. Well, are you coming or not? it might as well be saying. Winnie’s doors fly open of their own accord, and they putter off into the night. I don’t think these vacuums are going to hurt me anymore, so I follow them.

They head for the cornfield at a steady clip. I stand in awe as the blades reappear and they mow down the stalks with speedy efficiency. I watch for hours. They move quickly and silently, with coordinated movements, a dance they both know well. When the patterns begin to take shape and I remember the burned floors and the cut carpets, I understand. Of course. Crop circles. They’ve been making crop circles all this time.