Page 21 of Strange Lights

“Clearly. But why do you have it? What is it?”

“Moss agate,” I say with a grin, plucking the rock off the shelf and tilting it so the crystals catch the light. “I like the way it sparkles.”

Calvin raises an eyebrow and mutters something disparaging under his breath.

I decide the tour is done when he reaches for the handle of an old detached door that leans against the wall. “Stop touching everything! What’s behind there will definitely try to kill you. That’s not the kind of door anyone comes back out of.”

“You know,” Calvin muses, “I have a cousin who claims he got lost in some sort of alternate universe behind a door he found in the woods once.”

“Yeah, and I bet he also told you never to mess with any doors you find somewhere that there shouldn’t be a door.”

“He did, actually. I have a whole podcast episode about it, The Darkness Behind the Door.”

“Speaking of your podcast, you can’t put any of this on there,” I say as we emerge into the bright light of the Winnebago’s normal rooms.

“Why shouldn’t I? Why keep all this secret?” he asks as he automatically moves to the sink, pokes around for a sponge and soap, and starts to wash the cocktail shaker. Manny could stand to learn an extra trick or two from Calvin.

I hand him a dry towel as I consider the conundrum about how much to tell him. I can’t spill all my secrets, obviously. But he’s in danger if he starts going public with any of this. It’s partially my fault he’s a werewolf, and now I’ve gone and shown and told him even more. He deserves to know. But also telling him anything else puts everything at risk, and I’ve worked so hard for what I have now. I think I can trust Calvin. But I let myself get too attached before, and look how that turned out for me. On the run in a stolen Winnebago with the Chupacabra, that’s where. If I tell Calvin everything, I will lose him. But if I tell him and can’t convince him to keep quiet, I will lose Eldi.

Eldi is curled up asleep in her loft bed above the driver’s seat. She needs a bath. Her sticky little hands are covered in dirt and blood, and her bangs are plastered to her forehead, hopefully with sweat not boogers, but who knows. Goat is firmly tucked between her teeth, his one eye barely visible through graying polyester fluff. Eldi snuffles and kicks her feet violently before burrowing under the covers. It’s an easy choice. I can live with myself if she stays safe. I’ll give him enough information to keep him quiet, make him understand the dangers, but not enough information to hate me.

“Have you ever heard of Agency 51?” I finally ask Calvin. I lean back against the table behind him, staring past my cactus perched on the sill at his vague reflection in the darkened Winnebago window.

“You mean have I heard the conspiracy theories about Area 51? That the government hides alien ships and bodies there?” His familiar skepticism is back in full force. “Don’t tell me that’s real.”

“I wasn’t going to, because it isn’t. I don’t actually know anything about Area 51.”

“I knew it couldn’t all be true.” Calvin laughs with relief, refolding the towel neatly and turning away from the sink to face me.

Under the pretense of checking on Eldi, I move to the front of the Winnebago. I need an excuse to keep from looking directly at Calvin while I speak. “Agency 51 is something else. If anyone does have alien bodies and ships, it’s them. They want you to laugh at all the conspiracy theories and discount rumors as wild stories. Hiding in plain sight works. They operate out of a different part of the Nevada desert and aren’t connected to the government at all.” Tugging Eldi’s blanket down to cover her toes knocks Goat from her mouth. Her hands automatically scrabble for him, and Calvin is there, pressing Goat back in her hands before I have the chance.

“Somewhere along the way,” I continue in a low voice, though Eldi could sleep right through an apocalypse, “the rumors got entangled with the Area 51 conspiracies, and the name stuck. It works in their favor. Most people assume anything with the 51 in it refers to Area 51, not the agency.” Calvin has leaned even closer now, listening intently as I speak. Close enough I can feel the heat of his body, smell that goddamn shampoo of his. Turning away from him as much as I can in the small space of the front cab, I find myself staring instead at Manny, still in the passenger seat. He hasn’t moved in a while, and I vaguely wonder if he’s asleep; it’s hard to tell.

“Their operation is to find, control, and weaponize anything that might not fit into a neat little niche in this world. Monsters, aliens, magic, that’s what they hunt and experiment on in there.” I dart out of the gap between Calvin and the driver’s seat and rest my hands on the edge of the sink, my gaze returning to the cactus perched on the windowsill.

Before he follows me, Calvin tugs loose a spare blanket puddled at the end of Eldi’s bed and gently tucks it over Manny, who by all appearances is really sleeping. My heart threatens to burst out of my chest at the sight. Heartburn, I tell myself. Late-night lemon and whiskey will do that at my age.

“Eldi would be in danger if they could find her.” He doesn’t need me to connect those dots.

“So her father . . . She doesn’t have a father. Or at least her father isn’t some ex-boyfriend of yours.”

“Nope, but I couldn’t explain that before.”

A complicated mix of emotions flashes across his face. “How did you get involved in all this?”

Picking up my cactus, turning the pot this way and that, I examine the rainbow pattern of flowers painted on it. I think for a moment, pass the pot from hand to hand, weigh the truth. “They tried to recruit me,” I say, “and you’re in danger even if you stopped associating with me and Eldi, now that you’re a werewolf. You’re on their radar because of your podcast, but it fits the narrative they want, so they leave you alone.”

“But if I started claiming to have proof creatures like Eldi and werewolves exist . . .”

“Exactly. They’d come after you to shut you up or get information out of you. And I have worse news: I think they’ve found me and suspect I might have something they want. They don’t have proof that I have Eldi, so they’re waiting to strike.” One of the cactus’s spines is longer than the other, growing slightly askew. I don’t know how I’ve kept this thing alive all these years. I don’t know anything about caring for a cactus. Am I supposed to prune it or leave it alone? I can’t resist poking at the errant spine, and it detaches, sticks in my finger, a sharp needle of pain shooting up my left hand.

“And you work to protect beings like Eldi from them?”

“Yes.” Stupid of me to keep a scraggly plant that bites back.

Calvin takes the pot from my hands, moving slowly as if I were a stray cat that might lunge at him. He plucks the spine from my finger and examines the drop of blood welling there.

“Good news,” he says softly, running his fingers across my palm, “I don’t think we’ll have to amputate. And I have no desire to suck your blood.”