It didn’t.
# # #
Amber woke up when the sun was still up. After only a week of working all night and sleeping during the day, sunlight was starting to fade into memory. To take advantage of her day off, she sat out back at the picnic table and looked up at the sky while she ate her breakfast.
This time, she heard Shawn’s approaching footsteps.
Amber turned around, already frowning.
“I asked you not to come around here.”
“I saw a package on your doorstep. I didn’t want anyone to steal it. The porch pirates around here are fast and stealthy. You can’t just leave something out like that.”
She pointed at the far end of the table. “Set it down.”
He took the command as invitation for him to sit. Amber rolled her eyes.
“Do I have to take out a restraining order on you?” she asked.
He looked genuinely sad at that question. Amber had spent their entire relationship trying to figure out how to tell when Shawn was putting on an act. The conclusion that she eventually drew was that he was never putting on an act. That’s why he was so dangerous. He was actually convinced that he was a genuinely nice person.
“Amber, I know you don’t want to go out with me ever again. You told me that in no uncertain terms. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t continue to be a friend to your cousin. Maybe, eventually, you and I can be friends as well. I’m not pushing for that and I don’t think that you should rule it out.”
“Shawn, there are billions of people in this world. Go find one of them to be friends with.”
Anger flashed across his eyes. It was so quick that most people would have missed it, but Amber was adept at reading Shawn.
“I’m going to check in on Mrs. Evelyn. If you don’t want to visit with us, I suggest that you avoid going inside for ten or fifteen.”
“Whatever.”
She kept a close eye on him until he was climbing the stairs. She didn’t really relax until she heard the door close behind him. When he was gone, Amber slid down and grabbed the package. It was postmarked from Portland Maine. She sighed. Her life was full of knots and she couldn’t seem to untie any of them.
Amber opened the padded envelope and slipped out a book. There was no note included.
“I’m supposed to read the whole thing?” she whispered.
The title made it clear to her that there was no way she was going to read the whole thing.
“Unique Fauna of New England: A Field Guide and Memoir by SE Prescott, 1908,” she read aloud. The cover of the book made it look like a real publication. Inside, it was handwritten pages. She thought it might be some kind of Xerox or something until she saw that part of the title page was water stained. Some of the ink had spread out—yellow on the edges and purple in the middle of the stain. The pages crinkled as she flipped them.
“I’ll probably get fleas from this thing,” she mumbled.
Amber shook her head and flipped through the book as she tried to think of how she was going to send the book back to where it came from. She didn’t have a physical address for Ricky and she wasn’t going to invite fresh conversation by asking for one. The one personal detail she knew about him was that he was a sheriff, or a deputy sheriff at least. She could always put his name on the envelope and address it back to the…
The thought stopped in her head when she saw a flash of bright pink. She paged back and saw the note tucked into the book. It read, “This chapter.”
”Impossible to Find,” was the name of the chapter. The handwritten text was difficult to decipher at first but Amber quickly made sense of it.
# # #
Beyond Wilson’s Stream, on Willimantic land, a strange variety of salamander can be found. They are difficult to locate, not because of rarity, but appearance, or lack thereof. From my reading, I believe this new clade to be unique to this region.
Accompanied by my companion, Scout, I set off one evening to catalogue the local population of Lampyris Notilua in the woods near Wilson’s Stream. This beetle is difficult to locate during daylight hours, and hard to miss at night. The glow that it emits is weak, but on a moonless night under a thick canopy of leaves, one can manage a count. Once he understood my objective, Scout put his nose to the ground and led me to a community of glow worms. I was collecting samples when Scout gave a squawk and ran back to my side. Fresh blood stained his nose.
After lighting my lantern, I cajoled him back to the spot of his injury. I feared what we might find. At first, I saw nothing. When Scout growled at the roots of a tree, I lowered myself down, bringing the lantern light with me. That’s when I discovered the animal.
This Caudata relative was approximately seven inches in length, with a girth of approximately three inches. I witnessed only the shadow of the creature, and I only saw that for a moment before the shadow dissolved. When it moved, I saw it again until it was able to compensate for its new backdrop. My attempt to capture the animal for closer inspection revealed that I was correct in my assessment. It was the salamander that drew blood from Scout. The creature nipped at my hand as I reached and sank its teeth into my glove. I transferred it to a bag for transport and continued my survey.
I was weary when I reached home, but nonetheless eager to examine my discovery. The creature was shy of candlelight, withdrawing deep into my terrarium whenever
