Lord Halliday’s Mistake

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Carrie had not thought of fireflies in years. If she had given them any consideration at all, it was a fleeting assumption that they’d gone extinct. The last time she saw one was six years earlier, during the summer between sixth and seventh grades. Her family had visited an uncle who lived in an old farmhouse outside St. Louis. At night, they would sit on his porch and count the flickering yellowish-green floating lights in his front yard. “It’s like the stars came down to earth,” her uncle said. Carrie liked that.

Since that trip, she couldn’t remember the last time she saw a firefly. Until that night.

Carrie had been at her friend, Lilly’s house for the day, and as it was getting dark she left and got in the Ford Taurus her parents gave her when she turned 16. It had been her mom’s, but the calculation of the trade-in value versus the cost of a different used car for Carrie led to the conclusion that the black Taurus should be hers. She drove to the Monroe Public Library, which was just a couple of miles away.

She parked in one of the empty street spots in front of the library, which had been closed for a couple of hours. Carrie got out of the car and grabbed the four books she was returning. She had hoped to get more, but she had lost track of time with Lilly. She could always come back tomorrow. It wasn’t like she was a stranger to the Monroe Public Library.

Carrie walked up the chipped concrete sidewalk towards the library’s front door where the chute awaited to accept books any time of day or night. The song of cicadas filled the warm night air. Halfway up the path, something caught her eye – a single flashing luminescence in the air beside her. She stopped, turning towards the light. It flashed again. She smiled at the firefly and watched as it flew towards her. The firefly hovered inches from her face, emitting another light.

She stood still, not wanting to scare off the firefly. The firefly flew a few feet away from her onto the lawn of the library. It stopped and flashed its light again. Carrie looked as it seemed to hover in place, firing off another yellowish-green pulse. Carrie walked towards the firefly. When she got near, it flew another few feet away from her and hovered again.

Carrie walked slowly towards the firefly, but when she got close, it moved a short distance away. Over the next few minutes, the firefly repeated this process, leading Carrie across the lawn and around the side of the library with a series of start-stop flights and increasingly insistent lights. She followed as if entranced by the will-o-the-wisps until the firefly lit on the side door with faded yellow stencil letters reading “EMPLOYEES ONLY”.

The firefly crawled towards the handle, before flying and hovering beside it. Carrie cocked her head. The firefly landed on the handle again and flashed before flying a few inches above it again. Carrie reached for the handle and turned it. The door was not locked.

She opened the door, and the firefly flew through it, flashing its taillight in the darkened library. Without thinking about the consequences of breaking into the library, Carrie entered, her stack of books clutched to her chest.

The firefly had covered more territory than she had expected, and the floating beacon led her through the twilight dark on the library before landing on a book in the general fiction section.

Carrie set her stack of books on the floor and approached the firefly. She reached for the book it had landed on. There was enough light from outside that she could see the old, brown clothbound book’s faded title Lord Halliday’s Mistake by E. Beckham.

Carrie picked up the book and the firefly flew off, landing on the shelf nearby. She opened the book and looked at the check in/out card in the small manila envelope affixed to the inside cover. The last due date was one day shy of ten years earlier.

It was a small book of no more than 125 pages. Carrie closed it and started to put it on the shelf. The firefly began to rapidly flash its light. Carrie opened the book again, and the firefly stopped. She turned the book to the first page and began to read.

“Lord Halliday was a man prone to many things, but rare were his mistakes.”

As she finished that first sentence, the firefly flashed a light that was so intense it blinded Carrie for a moment, and she closed her eyes. When she opened them, the firefly was gone, but standing nearby was the yellowish-green outline of a man. Carrie knew she should scream, but she did not.

“Sorry, miss. I meant no offense or alarm. Thank you for opening that book,” the slight older man said in a British accent.

“Who…what,” Carrie stammered.

“I am Edgar Beckham,” the figure said. “You hold a copy of the only book I every wrote in your hands.”

Carrie looked inside the book, and read that the book was published in 1921. She looked up at the figure. “How old were you when you wrote this?” she asked.

“Forty-five. Rather old for a first novel. Sadly young for a last one.”

“Wait, that would make you…” Carrie started.

“Quite dead,” the figure said.

“I don’t understand,” Carrie said, although she did more than she wanted to admit to herself.

“I died in 1958. But, as a writer, my spirit lives on through my books, you see,” Edgar said.

Carrie nodded.

“Thing is, that if no one reads an author’s work that spirit fades. And if no one reads their work in ten years, that spirit ceases to be.”

“And your ten years are up tomorrow,” Carrie said.

“Yes. At 1:38 a.m. your time to be exact.”

“I see. You need me to read your book before 1:30 tomorrow morning,” Carrie said.

“If you’d be so kind. It’s not terribly long, and I daresay it is fun.”

“Why me?”

“Most people don’t pay attention to fireflies anymore,” Edgar said with a hint of sorrow.

Carrie looked at the book, then back into Edgar’s face. “Well,” she said, “I better get started.”

Carrie went to a desk with a reading lamp and started to read. She had to shoo Edgar away from her as she read, as he too expectantly watched her for a reaction. She read Lord Halliday’s Mistake without a break. Edgar was right; It was a fun book.

As she finished, she closed the book. Edgar looked at her with a smile. “Thank you,” he said, as his form coalesced into a yellowish-green ball of light that exploded in blinding nova. After her eyes adjusted from the explosion, Carrie looked around the library. Dozens of fireflies perched on books and sent out their flashes of light and hope.

Carrie made a note of the name of each book that had a firefly on it before leaving the library, making sure the employee door was secured.

She got in trouble that night when she got home. Her parents told her how worried they had been, and determined she should be grounded for two weeks. They confined her to the house, but agreed she could read and allowed for a quick trip to the Monroe Public Library before serving her time.

Carrie revived ten souls during the time she was grounded. After that, and throughout her life, she would keep an eye out for stars that had come down to earth and follow them to find books in need of reading and spirits in need of saving.

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