Ⅰ

There is a type of darkness that surrounds particular areas of the world. Far from the so-called darkness of the cities—where light pollution nearly makes the sun obsolete. Or even from the rural neighborhoods that can still be found in certain areas in America—where the streetlights that pepper the sidewalk every fifty feet or so keeps the true darkness from seeping in.

Away from where humanity has dug itself in, like blood sucking ticks on the body of the Earth, where any collection of densely packed trees, brush, and untamed wilderness preside, comes with it a darkness that is practically an entity in itself. An entity that has weight, which has an agenda, that wants to pull you into its mysteries that lay within the woods it emanates from. We’ve fought this entity, first with fire, then with electricity, finally with industrialization. We’ve pushed it back and away out of fear; fear of what may be within it, or worse, what we may find within ourselves should we be consumed by it.

Some, however, would rather embrace the darkness. In the case of one woman, sitting alone outside her dark home on a broken and splintered second floor balcony, it wasn’t the darkness that made her uneasy. But rather the light was what bothered her, the light that had harmed her.

Adaline, or Addie as she preferred, sat surrounded by this darkness. No lights from her home, no lights from the street, no light even coming from the heavens on this cold, overcast October day in Washington. Her eyes were open, she was nearly sure of it, but in her inebriated state she knew she couldn’t be sure of anything. She was pretty sure she was sitting in her ragged lawn chair she had hauled up from the backyard some years ago. She couldn’t see it—it was too dark for that—but she could feel the faithful cloth of the seat wrapped around her; from the back of her knees where the lining was nearly worn through, up to the back of her neck where loose threads pricked at her skin. She let her left arm drop off the armrest (more confident than ever that she was, in fact, in a chair) and let it swing in the air. She twisted her fingers in the darkness, feeling blindly for her only companion this evening. Her fingers grazed the hard, glass neck of one of the bottles that sat beside her and with some effort she grasped it with her fingertips. She lifted the bottle and felt it come easily, without much effort, which washed an initial wave of disappointment through her. This particular bottle was probably empty, but she elected to verify it the only way she could be sure in this darkness. She raised the bottle to her lips and kicked its backend upwards towards the overcast sky. A paltry drop made its way down the long neck and onto her tongue. The single drop of whisky ran its way down her throat and into her stomach, without much notice or even a conscious thought to swallow it. Without hesitation, she tossed the bottle forward listening for it as it fell into the grass below. She reached down once more, found another, lifted a second bottle, this one with more weight and followed through with the same experiment. This time the liquid filled her mouth quickly and she lowered the bottle swallowing as she did. She let out a satisfied sigh as a warm sensation ran through her, bringing with it a temporary and misleading reprieve from the coldness that was seeping into her body.

Bottle in hand, she turned her head back towards her backyard. Even in the pure darkness that surrounded her, and with more than enough liquor running through her system to cloud her mind’s eye, she could still see every detail of the yard she called her own. She didn’t own it; her father still technically owned the house, but she was the only one here anymore, so she figured it was as much hers as anyone’s. She had lived in the modest two-story home long enough to call it hers. She drunkenly mowed the grass of the backyard in crooked lines every weekend, and she stood guard outside the woods every night. She could see them now, impossible as it may seem, considering the situation she found herself. Fifty yards from her, the densely packed forest that held the answers to her questions sat and stared back at her.

Can’t see the forest for the trees. She thought to herself and scoffed audibly.  

The phrase echoed through her head often on the nights she sat on her balcony this late and this drunk, which of course was most nights. She hated that phrase, along with the idiom read the room, but that was less relevant to her current situation. She was outside after all, there was no room to read. She would return to her worn and frayed lawn chair every evening, bottle of whisky in hand, to lie in wait for the lights in the darkness to appear. The lights in question appeared as frequently as she did. Actually, if she was being honest, they had a better track record than her. There were occasional evenings in which she would pregame a little too hard during the day and end up passed out in her living room, before she had a chance to get up to her private guard tower, or theater box, depending on how she saw her role that night. While she couldn’t be sure, she felt certain the lights had been there since the first night her family had moved into the house. She imagined the lights had been there long before her father had built on the property. What she could be sure of was that they had, without a doubt, been appearing every night since her brother had gone missing while trying to figure out what they were, and she figured they would continue to appear long after she was dead.

Three things are certain in this world: death, taxes, and these god damn, mother fucking lights that will continue to taunt me. She thought to herself and chuckled.

Despite her lack of knowledge on the mystery behind her house she continued to keep watch. She was the only one who continued to keep watch. She had continued long after the police investigation into her brother’s disappearance had ended. Long after the search volunteers had come and gone. Long after the talking heads of the news and television show personalities had come. ‘Experts in the field,’ they would proclaim themselves. The investigators came looking for a body. They wanted to find her brother withered and decayed so they could blur the photos and show them to the world. The mystery hunters wanted to understand and explain away the lights themselves. Both would leave disappointed. They would spend a few nights in the woods getting scratched by branches and bit to hell by bugs, before they got frustrated that they didn’t find anything they could record or profit from. They left with the promise to return, to unravel this mystery once and for all, but that was nearly a decade ago and it was no further unraveled than the night Jackson had vanished. They had all moved onto more understandable stories and mysteries.

Now it was just her, her chair, and her bottle in the dark. The night was so black she couldn’t be sure she was even facing the right direction. Addie didn't know why she continued to do this. She didn't know if she expected that one day Jackson would just walk out of the woods, or if she expected the lights to not make their nightly appearance or do something different. She didn't know what she would do if they actually did something different than their usual spectacle. The only thing she did know, was that she didn’t know what else to do.

Everyone in town had their own ideas of what happened to Jackson, of course. Fobes Hill—of which she called her home—was what they call a small unincorporated community, a.k.a a small-town butting up on the big city, which is exactly what her parents had been looking for when they wanted to build their home. But unfortunately, the small-town aesthetic came with small-town attitudes.

And that comes with the small-town cliché of everyone’s noses in everyone else’s assholes. Addie thought to herself.

Some of her neighbors—in a small town everyone who lived in it was your neighbor—believed he simply ran away. Others believed he was kidnapped by crazies in the woods or fell down an old, unmarked sewer or well. Addie didn't believe any of those. She refused to believe her brother had left them, and she adamantly refused to believe he was dead. Her therapist had said she was in denial, and she managed to surprise the frustrated doctor when she had agreed. The surprise faded quickly, however, when she quipped that she was in denial of Dr. Jans’ diagnosis. This joke was something that Dr. Jans did not see the humor in, but Addie had nearly thrown up laughing at her own joke. Although in hindsight, her overreaction to the bad joke and the feeling of queasiness, well, that might have been brought on more so by the booze than any actual humor.

The people who had their theories (all of them), and decided it was necessary to voice them (most of them), didn't know her brother. Her brother was a smart kid, and most of all he was happy. She was certain of that. He was excited about the new house, and they had recently come back from a vacation to California, where they had been staying while the house was being finished. Her brother practically ran on electricity, and he lived off media, the internet, and technology. If he didn't have headphones in his ears, or was off exploring some obscure website, or had his nose in some silly self-published book—of which, her brother would be one of the few to actually buy and consume that nonsense—then his sense of direction in life was missing. He had all of that here, he was never the kid that would want to run off. He had disagreements with his parents, sure, but what teenager hadn’t? He never was angry, he never held a grudge, and he most certainly never talked about running away.

Addie knew this because she probably knew her brother better than anyone. They had always been close growing up, especially as kids. Mom had wanted nothing more than for them to be friends through their shared childhood, and she got her wish, even if it turned into a monkey's paw situation for her and their father. Having a kid who is creative, mischievous, and an instigator, Jackson, and one who is stubborn, willing to go along, and push that extra mile to get things done, Addie, the two of them got into a fair amount of trouble growing up. She believed there were patches of grey hair in both their parents’ heads named after them.

This, of course, isn’t to say they didn’t butt heads at times. It was Jackson’s imagination and creativity that was the worst and drove her nuts. Nothing could ever have a simple explanation. Missing keys? Dad didn’t misplace them like he did everything else, it had to be a conspiracy of someone living in our house and taking them. Odd noise outside? Couldn’t be an animal living in the acre of their property that was heavily wooded, it had to be Bigfoot. Mysterious lights in the woods? It had to be aliens. But the absolute worst part of it all, was he always had to investigate. As far back as she could remember, and her parents backed her up in the areas she couldn’t, Jackson was a problem solver and always ran headfirst into the unknown because he always had to look, and help, and understand, even if it was counter to his, or her, best interests. But regardless of the frustrations and irritations they inflicted on each other—she certainly gave as much as she got—her brother was her best friend, and she knew he wouldn’t leave her behind.

Addie shuddered, pulling her back to reality and away from the childhood memories she was desperately trying to drink away. She pulled the zipper on her jacket up to her neck to shield against the bitter wind that cut through her yard and rattled her home, as well as shifted the trees she couldn’t, yet somehow could see, in the darkness. She didn’t mind the weather in Washington most of the time, but now and again she would think about the beaches in California where she had spent a number of summers, and long for the warm sun and sandy shores. The summer their father built the house, the whole family took a trip down the west coast.

Addie grimaced at the memory and took another long pull on her bottle, trying to focus on the pool of poison that floated in her mouth as she swallowed and felt it run its course down into her stomach, splashing against the walls of the nearly empty organ. Her stomach rumbled out of protest and hunger, as her brain forced forward the memory of the picnic lunch they had on that California beach, near the border of Oregon and the Golden State. They ate their lunch as a family on the sand, and as their parents relaxed and got the car ready for the final leg of the trip, the two siblings had wandered down the empty beach. They were getting older, she was twelve going on twenty, Jackson fourteen going on ten, but their childhood sense of exploration still hung with them as they explored the area. Eventually, they found their way to a rocky outcropping where they would sit together and enjoy the peace away from their parents and that car they had been cooped up in for the last few days. They sat side by side on the warm stone, watching the waves and listening to the seagull’s caws about various trash they had found that they considered treasure.

"This is the longest I think I’ve seen you go without something blasting into your ears." Addie teased her brother and tried to push a sandy finger into his ear where a headphone usually rests. "I'm surprised you can function by getting natural sound in both ears at the same time.”

Jackson swatted her hand away and smiled. "Oh, I just like the sound of the waves I suppose." He then turned to her and gave her a shove. "Besides, I like to listen to your voice crack. It sounds like the metal part of a pencil eraser scraped up against a chalkboard."

Addie tensed up and slowly rolled over onto her side, cold goosebumps broke out all over her body at the thought of the sound her brother was describing. The clash between her cold skin and the warm rock made it worse.

"Oh fuck off." Addie squeaked out between clenched teeth. She had recently taken to swearing and while she didn’t yet dare do it in front of her parents, her brother was another story. "Shit on your mind and in your ears." She wasn’t good at it yet.

Jackson raised an eyebrow at the attempt to curse him out and at the discomfort he had created. He simply smiled at her and returned his gaze to the water.

In a short time, they were called back by their parents and they got in the car to continue their journey north. By the time they arrived back in Washington, the construction of their new home was complete. Their father had bought a sizable amount of cheap land due to foreclosure in Fobes Hill, however, due to it being undeveloped the money he had saved quickly went out of the window to prepare and build on it. The house was not overly large, not compared to some of the other houses in the area; a two-story, four-bedroom affair that had all the modern amenities their father desired, hidden behind their mother's taste for the antique. Their mother referred to the style of the interior of the house as ‘Midcentury Modern Boho.’ Jackson took to the term and would proudly describe the style of the house to anyone who came over as ‘Modern Ho’ as frequently as possible, much to his mother’s displeasure and fits of giggling from his sister and their father. A glance from their mother would stifle their dad’s laughter, but it just made Addie’s giggle fits worse.

Their neighborhood was sparse and calling it a neighborhood was generous enough. Addie could see other houses in the distance from where their driveway met the road, but the closest one was across the street. Their closest neighbors lived in a large, Victorian home sitting on a hill directly across the street overlooking the entire area. The house itself had once been white and was in dire need of a fresh coat of paint, but the rest of the home was meticulously cared for. The lawn was perfectly manicured, and it had a pretty flower bed that wrapped around from the front to the side of the house. On the day that they moved in, a larger man in a trucker cap was pushing a mower around the yard and a scrawny older woman was kneeling in her flowers. Addie had raised her hand to her new neighbors, but only the man returned the gesture and he got quite the tongue-lashing from the woman for it. Addie couldn’t make out fully what she was saying from the distance, but based on the little bit she did catch, she realized the older woman was much better at swearing than she was. Jackson, attracted by the noise, joined her at the edge of the driveway and looked up at the house.

“Oh, so we live across the street from the house from Psycho.” He stated, his tone sardonic and sarcastic. “Terrific.”

“I think the house is pretty.” Addie replied. “Paint aside. The neighbors don’t seem too friendly though.”

Jackson took in the scene from across the street. The woman had finished her rant and entered the house with a slam of the door. The large man seemed bewildered, glancing once at the kids at the driveway, then continuing with his lawn care.

“Pretty or not.” Jackson began. “That house is a few years of neglect away from being a murder mansion.”

To this, Addie had no reply. She simply felt bad for the man with the mower.

“Come on.” Jackson said, nudging her. “Dad wants us inside.”

Their father was excited to give them a tour of their new home. Other than their mother and the contractor, no one had been allowed to see the layout because their father, frustratingly, loved surprises. He led them upstairs and had the kids each stand in front of their respective bedroom doors. He had them open them together and they were both greeted by large rooms, filled with the natural light of the setting sun through the sliding glass doors that led onto their own private balconies. They each walked over and opened their corresponding doors, stepping out into the fresh Washington evening air. A view of their large backyard and the trees behind it greeted them. The balconies were small, they couldn't fit more than two people comfortably, three if they squeezed together, but it was something new, something exciting, and they thanked him for it.

Standing on her balcony, Addie looked over to her brother’s, which was about two feet away railing to railing. Between the two, and a few feet above her head, was a box on the outer wall.

“What’s that?” Addie asked.

Her father joined her outside and followed her gaze.

“Oh, it’s just part of the electrical nonsense.” He replied, and when he noticed his daughters gaze from the box to her brother’s balcony he continued. “Don’t try to use that as a handle to hop from balcony to balcony; it's likely to tear off the wall and start an electrical fire.” He paused. “Plus, you would fall and break your back, or whatever. Important takeaway of the story, don’t burn the new house down.” 

Addie stood on her balcony for the rest of the evening as the movers slowly loaded her bedroom items into her new room. As the sun set and the house grew dark, she rummaged through a box, found a lamp, put sheets on her bed, and crawled in to sleep in her new room for the first night. It was nearly two in the morning, and they’d had a long day. She fell asleep with her lamp on, and didn’t notice when the room grew brighter for a little while in the middle of the night while she slept deeply in her new room.

While she was certain they had been there from day one, Addie didn't know, or couldn’t remember, how long they had lived in that house before they first noticed the lights. It had to have been at least a few months. She was not one to stay up until two in the morning, especially having just started high school. Jackson, on the other hand, was a night owl despite the fact that waking him for school was usually the most difficult part of their mother’s day. She did remember that Jackson was the first one to spot them. Her older brother had taken to starting off his weekends by settling into all-night gaming sessions that started after school on Friday and ran late into the night. One evening, the sheet he had hung over his balcony door to cut out the glare on his T.V. during the day had fallen and, in his laziness, he never bothered to replace it. The lights had shown into his room that night and he watched them for a few minutes before going to get their father, believing them to be homeless people, or kids with flashlights out causing mayhem. He and their father watched them together from his room until they slowly faded out and vanished about twenty minutes after they initially appeared. Their father returned to bed but based on how exhausted Jackson looked the next morning when he was telling her the story of what happened, she figured Jackson didn't sleep for the rest of that night.

The next time he had seen them the circumstances were the same, but this time Jackson woke her instead of their father. They both stood on her balcony and watched beams of light come through the trees into their backyard.

"Why does it look weird?" Jackson asked. “The light filling the backyard, that’s fine, but there is something weird about the lights in the trees themselves.”

Addie held her jacket against herself tighter. It was the middle of winter, and she was not dressed properly against the cold. She hadn’t been fully awake when Jackson pulled her out of bed, but the chill was dragging her consciousness kicking and screaming to the forefront of her mind with its icy claws.

“Well.” She paused, unsure how to phrase what she wanted to say. "I mean it looks like whatever the lights in the woods are, it’s where the light is coming from. Not the product of a flashlight or something.” She paused, trying to gather thoughts out of her still half-asleep mind. “It doesn’t look like someone is standing in the woods waving a flashlight around, it’s like there are little suns moving around in the woods, casting a glow in all directions behind the trees, not just a beam of light from deeper in the woods." She paused again, frustrated with her words, her mind, and the fact that her brother had woken her to quiz her on something she did not give a shit about. “Light bulbs.” She finally blurted. “Light bulbs hanging in the trees, being swayed by the wind. But some crazy wattage light bulb.”   

"Yeah, you're right." Jackson spoke softly, more to himself than her. "What would you say, each one is like the size of a basketball?"

Addie squinted, trying to get a look at the orbs hovering in and out of the trees, then shrugged her shoulders "Yeah, about that. It’s hard to tell from this far away and they keep darting behind the trees."

“How many can you count?” Jackson asked.

“It’s hard because they won’t stop moving.” Addie said, her patience was growing thin, and she hoped she was conveying it in her voice. “A dozen maybe?”

They sat and watched the lights continue their lazy dance. After a few minutes, they slowly faded, as if someone was gradually bringing down a dimmer switch.

"They’re pretty." Addie began. "But if you wake me up again at two A.M. to drag me out into the cold and the house isn't on fire, or Chris Evans isn't at the door, imma’ kick you in your balls and knock you off the balcony."

Jackson ignored her and just kept staring at the dark woods.

Ⅱ

Addie snorted herself awake. She had dozed off while revisiting memories she couldn’t quite escape. A moment of bleary-eyed confusion ran through her head; she registered the cold breeze blowing against her, and the taste of vomit at the back of her throat, as she remembered where she was and what she was doing. She was where she always was. She felt around her and found that the bottle had fallen out of her hand and landed on its side next to her. Thankfully, it was empty enough that she lost little to no liquor in the incident, but she scooped it up quickly, nonetheless. Her mind wandered back briefly to the memories she was just revisiting, and she shook her head trying to clear it. The aggressive turning of her head sent a wave of dizziness through her and even in the darkness she could feel the world spinning. She had been trying desperately for the last few years to drink these memories away, but they remained as fresh scars on her mind, no matter how much booze she dumped into it.

Maybe if I drill a hole in my head and pour it directly in. She thought to herself. Really Jeffrey Dahmer myself up, I bet I won't remember then.

A sound came out of her mouth which could have been half a sob or half a laugh. Rather than rummage through her father’s power tools, she elected instead to pour more whisky down her throat, to try once more to stop her trips down memory lane. That, or at least to prevent any more noises from coming up and finding out whether the sound she just made was a cry or a giggle. Besides, the tears running down her cheeks leaving cold trails behind them were more than enough evidence for her.

She looked at her phone. The blinding light in the pitch blackness acted like daggers jammed directly into her eyes. She squinted at the screen, attempting to quickly scan through the notifications. Three new texts from Niki, one from Ed, two from her mother. They had all wanted to talk to her at some point tonight, but her interest in the booze and her current Kurt Vonnegut novel had kept her attention instead. She would respond to all three tomorrow while she attempted to mitigate the inevitable hangover. Niki and Ed were just talking about carpooling to school on Tuesday anyway, since they all had classes at Everett Community College on Tuesdays.

Is tomorrow Monday? What day is it? She thought to herself. Her mind tried to navigate its way in a haze towards a neuron that would be able to answer her. Yes, it's Sunday. Well Sundays suck in my H.D.O., solid enough excuse to drink.

She chuckled to herself, raising the nearly finished bottle to her lips and bringing her phone out again. She had intended to check the time when she got distracted by how utterly popular she was and never actually registered what time it was. She pulled her phone out once more, careful to look at the glowing screen indirectly this time, she saw it was 2:04 A.M.

Oh no, it’s Monday now. Oh well, Mondays suck in my H.D.O., solid enough excuse to drink.

Addie raised the bottle again. Once she had a mouth full of whisky, she placed the bottle carefully next to her and sat forward in her chair. It was almost time. She opened her phone and lowered the brightness, before selecting an app that would give her a clock with a second hand. She didn’t know why, but the lights had appeared every night at the exact same time for however long she had been watching them. They had been consistent during Jackson’s studies as well. She had found notes that he had left behind after his disappearance, but all they really amounted to was the time they arrived, and the time they faded away. Since she had started her watch, she had continued to keep track of their arrival and departure; in all this time they hadn’t been late or ever overstayed their welcome, and at this point the idea something different would happen was far from her mind. But timing them seemed like something Jackson would have continued to do, so she continued to do it as well. As the seconds ticked by before the lights arrived, she once again shuddered against the cold, fall night that October in Washington had brought. She thought back to the night Jackson had disappeared. It had been cold then, too. It had been April. Addie pressed one chilled hand to her forehead. The coolness of it felt good against the impending headache. She shifted her hands to her temples, trying to focus on something else, trying to keep the memory from coming forward. Despite her wishes, it pushed through the fog of her mind.

No. She thought to herself. Not April. It was March.

She had been up late because it was the first weekend of Spring Break. The two of them had elected to celebrate it in a way that two, geeky teenage siblings would; staying up all night discussing what content they were going to consume with the time away from school—for Addie, music and books, for Jackson, movies and video games—and bad mouthing their teachers, classmates, and even throwing a little shade at their parents. Their balconies were perfect. They could sit outside and enjoy the cool weather. It would have drizzled a bit, it was Washington after all, but the roof of the house covered the part of the balconies closest to their rooms to avoid getting wet, and they were close enough that they could hear each other but not wake their parents. They’d had many late-night conversations this way. Usually discussing whatever they were into at the time. Addie bored him with whatever book she was reading, Jackson driving her nuts with some crackpot nonsense he had read on some obscure message board. The night of March 30th however, had started with a music debate that nearly eight years later still offended her.

Ⅲ

“5150 is just as good as any of the Roth stuff.” Jackson had said.

Addie had simply looked at him, mouth agape before collecting herself.

“You are trying to piss me off. You came to this meeting prepared to upset me. You stood in your room and purposefully took time out of your evening to come up with something to make me angry. You are going to sit there and tell me with a straight face that any of the Hagar stuff is as good as the original Roth fronted Van Halen.”

“I can and will.” Jackson said reproachfully. “The first two Hagar fronted albums hold up. Tell me lady, in your infinite wisdom, which Van Halen album do you think is the best?”

“Van Halen II is perfect, top to bottom, and nothing can hold a candle to it.” Addie replied matter-of-factly and without hesitation.

“Oh, fuck off. You’re just saying that because it’s Dad’s favorite. You are just a poser and a kiss ass who can’t form her own opinions.”

“Play ‘Dance the Night Away’ and ‘5150’ back-to-back and tell me I am wrong.”

Jackson scoffed and waved a hand at her in a ‘can’t argue with these people’ gesture. Addie smiled. They tore into each other like this regularly, but it was always done playfully and with love. Usually, anyway. Tonight, however, this transgression may have changed her opinion of her future relationship with her brother.

As the minutes ticked and the darkness grew heavier, Jackson was teasing her about a guy he knew who had a crush on her. One who, he knew she didn't like. Addie, meanwhile, had managed to get Jackson to talk about a girl he had his eye on in his class. Emotional honesty and openness weren’t Jackson’s thing, so managing to pry this information out of him was a big achievement for her and she was proud of it. Her brother’s willingness to trust her with this information was almost enough to make her forgive him for his insane opinions regarding the Van Halen discography. Almost.

At 2:07 A.M. a handful of glowing orbs slowly faded into existence behind the trees. Jackson and Addie's conversation stopped as the lights came on, and they watched transfixed as their visitors began their delicate dance behind the trees.

"On the dot." Jackson said, looking at his phone.

This occurrence was no longer new to them. They had seen the lights do their majestic show many times over the last nine months. A few times in the summer they went into the trees trying to get a closer look, but the orbs would always move away, even if they thought they may have one cornered, it would simply blink out of existence and reappear elsewhere. They wouldn't appear on film, nor pictures. Jackson hadn’t given up when summer ended and had spent many of this winter’s months wrapped up for warmth against the cold and the rain, trying every type of film medium he could get his hands on. Nothing developed with images of the lights.

"I wish I could figure out how to get actual, physical evidence of them." Jackson said with a sigh.

"Maybe it's just the universe's way of saying that not every beautiful light show needs to be recorded." Addie replied. "It’s like those assholes who record fireworks or concerts on their phones. You're not going to watch it, and you’re in other people's way, just enjoy the show in the moment, jackass." It had been less than a year, but her swearing had gotten better.

Jackson simply chuckled and continued to be transfixed. After a few more minutes, Addie’s focus turned from the lights to her phone, and she never noticed Jackson slowly beginning to stand. Once he was a few inches out of his seat, he moved so quickly his legs pushed his chair back and it bounced off the wall behind him. Addie flinched at the loud noise, breaking the silent night air and worried the noise would wake their parents. Jackson didn’t even seem to register the sound. He just continued to move to his balcony railing, leaning over, getting as close as he could.

"They stopped." He said.

Addie leaned forward. "Beg pardon?"

"Look, the rays of light that the orbs emit, they aren't moving anymore. They are in fixed positions somewhere in the woods."

Addie stood up and looked. Sure enough, the puppet show of shadows created by the trees on their back lawn had frozen in place. Before she could fully process this, however, Jackson was already halfway back in his room.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"This is my chance," he responded, continuing into the house.

He grabbed his phone and took a step back onto his balcony. He looked to the lights, then to his phone, turning on the flashlight. It had been pointed at Addie and she was briefly blinded.

"Jackson, this is not a good idea." Addie blinked her eyes to push away the spots his flashlight had created. Her heartbeat like a sprinting jackrabbit in her chest. "It is two A.M.; you are going to trip and fall in that thick brush and bang your head on a rock and then bleed to death."

Jackson, who had already been on his way back into his room, poked his head out of his balcony door and looked at her, and then the lights. He then looked down at his phone. He watched the clock turn to 2:21 A.M.

"I've got eight minutes to make that distance before they fade away. Are you coming or not?" Jackson looked at her, she could tell he was anxious and excited. If he had an opportunity, he always had to look.

"Jackson, we don't know what this is." She gestured to the woods. “What they are.”

"I know that in all this time they have never stopped." Jackson looked out to the lights again to verify they hadn't restarted their odd dance. "And I don't know if this will happen again."

Jackson went into his room. Addie followed suit, going into hers then straight out of her bedroom door, and met him in the hallway.

"Please don't." She said, grabbing his arm. She had given up whispering and at this point would welcome her father coming out to ask what they were doing up so late. She could feel fear settling into her stomach like a heavy rock dropped into a river. "Stay here."

Jackson simply smiled. "I am just going to check it out."

He gave a tug of his arm that she was holding, and she released it, sighing as she did so. Jackson bolted down the stairs. Addie rushed back to her balcony and hit her railing in time to see him come out from under the house, legs pumping. He had long legs and could move fast; she could never catch him when they had played as kids. She tried to shout after him to be careful, but before the words were out of her mouth, he had broken the tree line and she had lost sight of him.

She waited four minutes, before the anxiety and fear couldn't allow her to pace the small space of her balcony floor anymore. She rushed down the stairs and put on her shoes. She looked at her phone: 2:27 A.M. She ran out into her backyard, closing the distance between the house and the forest as quickly as she could. As she approached the tree line, she heard a sharp muffled scream and then an odd, but familiar, popping noise. It sounded like when her ears would pop as the pressure changed. As Addie entered the woods behind her house shouting her brother's name, the lights slowly began to dim. At 2:29 A.M., the lights vanished completely as they always did. But unlike the lights, which would return the next night, her brother never came out of the woods.

Ⅳ

Addie told her parents what happened. Then she told the police. Then anyone else who would listen. Reactions ranged from skeptical, to outright calling her a liar, or questioning her brother's integrity, and she wasn't really sure which she took more offence to. Once the cops, volunteers, and anyone else with a passing interest had left, it was just her and her parents, then it was just her. She tried to convince her parents to help her in studying the lights, to try to figure out what had happened. But the loss of their son had only driven them further from the subject than they already had been, and only a few years later they moved out of the house completely to escape the memories and the loss. She didn’t blame them for wanting to get away, but now Addie was alone in her hunt for the truth to what had happened to her brother that night.

 So she sat on her balcony, in a lawn chair with her bottle, the sense of numbness brought on by the liquor her only company. The balcony wood’s varnish had faded. The railings and floorboards were broken and splintered. The analytical side of her brain—poisoned by years of thematic abuse, due to her constant reading and the bombardment of motif and metaphor that accompanied her habit—automatically made a connection between the balcony's disrepair and the wearing down of her own life that she didn’t care for.

Still standing, but it ain’t pretty. She paused, raising the bottle to her lips, pausing halfway. Just like me.

She chuckled and pulled another long drink out of the bottle, before looking at her phone while she swallowed.

2:06:55.

 She counted down. "Five, four, three, two, one. Showtime."

The lights faded into existence. Addie raised the bottle with one hand to toast them as if they were an old friend, and with the other hand she raised her middle finger.