The Night the Fireflies Came

Lily pressed her nose against the kitchen window and watched the sky turn the color of peach jam. Grandmother was at the stove, stirring something that smelled like cinnamon and warm milk, humming a song that didn't seem to have any words.

"Grandmother," Lily said, "the backyard is boring."

Grandmother stopped humming. She tilted her head like a bird who'd just heard something very interesting. "Boring?"

"There's nothing out there. Just grass and that old oak tree and the fence with the missing board."

Grandmother set down her wooden spoon. She wiped her hands on her apron—the blue one with the little yellow stars—and came to stand behind Lily at the window. She looked out at the yard for a long, quiet moment.

"When I was a girl," Grandmother said softly, "that yard was full of fireflies."

Lily turned around. "What do you mean full?"

"I mean full." Grandmother's eyes got a faraway look, the kind they got when she was remembering something wonderful. "Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. They'd come out right at dusk, just when the sky looked exactly like it does right now. And the whole yard would light up like someone had scattered stars across the grass."

Lily looked back out the window. The yard was dark and empty and very, very ordinary.

"What happened to them?"

Grandmother was quiet for a moment. "Oh, I suppose things changed. The world got brighter. More houses, more streetlights, more noise. Fireflies like it quiet and dark. So they went somewhere else."

"Where?"

"Wherever the quiet is, I imagine."

Lily thought about this. She thought about it while Grandmother poured the warm cinnamon milk into two mugs. She thought about it while they sat together at the kitchen table. She thought about it so hard that she almost forgot to drink.

"Grandmother," she said finally, "what if we made it quiet for them?"

Grandmother looked at her over the rim of her mug. A tiny smile appeared at the corner of her mouth. "What do you mean?"

"Well, if they left because it got too bright and too loud, what if we made the backyard dark and quiet again? Maybe they'd come back."

Grandmother set down her mug. "Maybe they would," she said.

And that was all Lily needed to hear.

The next evening, Lily got to work. She found the switch for the back porch light and turned it off. Click. She asked Grandmother to close the curtains on the kitchen window so the indoor light wouldn't spill out. She took the little solar lantern off the patio table and tucked it inside the garden shed.

Then she dragged a blanket out to the middle of the yard and spread it beneath the old oak tree. She sat down cross-legged and waited.

The sky turned the color of peach jam again. Then darker. Then darker still.

Nothing happened.

Lily waited. She listened to the crickets start up, one by one, like tiny musicians tuning their instruments. She heard the neighbor's cat pad along the top of the fence. She felt the grass getting cool and damp around the edges of the blanket.

But no fireflies came.

After a while, Grandmother came outside and sat down beside her. She didn't say anything. She just sat there, warm and solid, smelling like cinnamon.

"They're not coming," Lily whispered.

"Hmm," said Grandmother.

"Maybe they forgot where we live."

"Maybe," said Grandmother. "Or maybe they just need a little more time. Things that have been gone a long while sometimes need a little coaxing."

So the next evening, Lily tried again. She turned off the porch light. She closed the curtains. She spread the blanket under the oak tree. But this time, she did something new.

She made the yard nice for them.

She filled a shallow dish with water and set it near the garden bed, in case fireflies got thirsty. She didn't know if fireflies actually got thirsty, but it seemed like a kind thing to do. She left a patch of tall grass unmowed along the fence—she'd begged Grandmother not to cut it. She even moved the radio inside so there'd be no noise drifting out through the screen door.

Then she sat on the blanket and waited again.

The sky darkened. The crickets tuned up. The neighbor's cat walked the fence like a tightrope artist.

Nothing.

Lily's shoulders drooped. She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them.

"Maybe they're never coming back," she said quietly.

Grandmother reached over and rubbed her back in slow, gentle circles. "You know what I think?" she said. "I think you've made the most beautiful, quiet, welcoming yard in this whole neighborhood. And I think that matters, whether they come tonight or not."

Lily didn't say anything. But she didn't go inside, either. She stayed right there on the blanket, looking up at the oak tree's branches, which spread above her like dark, crooked fingers against the deep blue sky.

And then—

She almost missed it.

A tiny flash. Just one. Near the bottom of the fence, right by the patch of tall grass she'd saved.

Lily grabbed Grandmother's arm. "Did you see that?"

"Shh," Grandmother whispered. "Watch."

Another flash. This one was closer, floating up from behind the garden bed like a spark rising from a campfire.

Then another.

And another.

And then—oh, and then—they came.

They rose up from the tall grass and from under the bushes and from places Lily couldn't even see. Little lights, blinking on and off, on and off, drifting upward like tiny golden lanterns being released into the night. Five, ten, twenty, more and more and more, until the whole backyard was swimming with them.

Lily's mouth fell open. She couldn't speak. She couldn't even breathe for a second.

They were everywhere.

One floated right past her nose, so close she could see its tiny body, no bigger than a grain of rice, glowing with a soft greenish-gold light. It blinked once, twice, and drifted on.

"Grandmother," Lily finally whispered. "Grandmother, look."

But Grandmother was already looking. And when Lily turned, she saw that Grandmother's eyes were shining, and not just from the firefly light. There were tears on her cheeks—the happy kind, the kind that come when something you thought was lost finds its way back to you.

"There they are," Grandmother said, her voice thick and wobbly. "Oh, Lily. There they are."

Lily reached out her hand, very slowly, very gently. A firefly landed on her fingertip. It sat there for a moment, its light pulsing like a tiny heartbeat, and Lily held perfectly, absolutely still.

She understood something then, sitting in the dark yard with the fireflies blinking all around her like a secret celebration. The yard hadn't been boring at all. It had been waiting. Waiting for someone to turn off the lights and sit quietly and pay attention. Waiting for someone to make a little space for something wonderful.

"Grandmother," Lily said, "can we do this every night?"

"Every single night," Grandmother said.

They lay back on the blanket together, side by side, Lily's small hand inside Grandmother's warm, wrinkled one. Above them, the fireflies rose higher and higher, mixing with the stars until Lily couldn't tell which lights were flying and which ones were fixed in the sky.

The neighbor's cat sat on the fence, watching with round golden eyes.

The crickets played their tiny songs.

And the backyard—the most beautiful, quiet, welcoming yard in the whole neighborhood—glowed and glowed and glowed.