Circuit Breaker by Dani Lucas
Dragons & Wyverns Short Story Challenge
1st place
Circuit Breaker
Casey, a first-year electrician’s apprentice, discovers an unusual hiccup in her new house’s electrical system.
Trigger Warnings: None
Six days into homeownership, Casey had reached three unassailable conclusions. First: she would never again buy a house without testing all of the light switches. Second: the minute that the lights started popping and flickering, she should’ve hired a professional, rather than assuming that she, a first-year apprentice, could handle it. And third: whoever had done the electrical in this place was certifiably insane. “This is ridiculous,” she said, sitting back on her heels and contemplating both the breaker box and her life choices with something approaching despair. Six days. Six days. Almost an entire week of flipping individual breakers, trudging upstairs, and testing every single switch to determine which breaker corresponded to which circuit.
So far, she’d successfully identified eight. Eight out of thirty-five. And honestly, it might be seven, because the circuit that she’d been sure controlled the dishwasher seemed not to be speaking to said dishwasher anymore.
Casey mournfully touched the label beside the circuit, the word “Dishwasher!” written in a fit of misguided optimism, then changed the exclamation point to a question mark and let her head fall forward to rest against the wall with a quiet thunk.
The lights went out.
Add a fourth unassailable conclusion, then: as much as she liked electrical work, the magic had very much worn off.
***
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Rachel glanced at the basement door skeptically. “I mean, not that I want all the unpacking to go to waste, but should you be living here?” “I switched off the main breaker.” Casey adjusted the flashlight nearest her to illuminate her friend’s face. “And I asked Scott to take a look if I can’t figure it out. My boss. I just keep thinking—this is what I’m supposed to be learning how to do. I feel like I should be able to do it, you know?”
“And none of this came up in the inspection?”
“It all came back perfect. It’s surreal.” Casey stabbed a pierogi with a straw as if it were personally to blame for the debacle that was her new house. “It’s like the electrical system hates me. Breakers that work one day don’t work the next. Everything smells like toast. Switches go either to five different lights or to absolutely nothing. And I think the basement is full of snakes.” Rachel choked on a mouthful of potato.
“Not, like, big snakes,” Casey reassured her, though from the look of panic on Rachel’s face, the reassurance wasn’t helping. “There’s just little piles of papery stuff down there that looks like snakeskin. I guess it could be lizards. Do lizards shed their skin?”
“Not the important question right now!” Rachel scrambled to her feet, frantically scanning the room. “You didn’t tell me there were snakes.”
“I mean, I don’t know.” Casey impaled another pierogi and waggled it at Rachel from her spot on the floor, a peace offering. “Look, I take it back. There’s probably no snakes.” Rachel waved it off. “I’m not eating off your used straw.”
“I can’t find my silverware. You’re using my only fork.”
“Maybe you can’t find your silverware because all your lights are off and it’s dark in here.”
“I’m going to fix it!” Casey collapsed back on the bare laminate floor, staring at the ceiling, at the darkened light fixture overhead. “Tomorrow, I’m going to open that breaker box and I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
“And you’ll call an exterminator.”
Casey sighed. “And I’ll call an exterminator.”
***
Casey’s plan fell apart at step one, open the breaker box, because somehow, overnight, the breaker box appeared to have fused itself shut. There was no sign of melting, or rust, or anything that could explain it, but the fact remained: the door simply would not budge.
Also, opening the breaker box would not have solved anything, because—fun new development—the breakers and an awful lot of wiring lay in a snarl on the basement floor, tiny tooth marks in the mangled remains of the plastic switches. The dead front was discarded in the corner, meaning that even assuming she could open the door, the busbars and lugs and live wiring would be exposed, ready to zap the first careless person to get too close. In other words, her electrical was probably not up to code anymore.
Were the snakes… in the walls? But then how could they tear out all the wiring? How could they unscrew the dead front? They didn’t even have hands. Mice couldn’t do this much damage. Raccoons, maybe? Raccoons had tiny little grippy hands, didn’t they? Were there raccoons living in her basement walls?
Were there ghosts?
The smart thing to do would be to call Scott. He’d been in the business longer than she’d been alive. Surely he would’ve seen something like this before. Surely he could walk her through it; maybe he’d even give her credit against her apprenticeship for the time spent untangling whatever this mess was.
Casey touched gloved fingers to the latch on the breaker box, gave it an experimental poke. Nothing.
Or.
Or, she could trap the thing. Didn’t that make sense? Lure it out and catch it and get it out of her walls? Otherwise, wouldn’t it just do this again?
She pulled off her protective gloves and tucked them into her bag.
Time to break out the leftover pierogis.
***
She was almost asleep when she heard it, a hollow scrabbling like claws on metal. Casey pulled her knees into her chest, making herself as small as possible, keeping her breathing silent. She didn’t want to scare the thing, just see what it was. Maybe catch it, if she could. There were no lights on—obviously—but the moonlight streaming through the windows was just enough that she should be able to—
The latch caught, and the door swung open. A long, sinuous neck poked out. Oh my God.
It’s a snake with hands.
But as soon as she had the thought, she knew it was wrong. This creature didn’t have the flat, blunt profile of a snake. Its head was graceful, almost equine, sweeping back into two delicately curved horns. Its serpentine neck tapered into a pair of gossamer wings, folded flat against its back. Tiny claws gripped the edge of the breaker box.
Its eyes were watching her.
Casey’s mouth was dry, her heart pounding in her ears so hard they were ringing with the sound. The thing living in her electrical system was a thing that, by all accounts, did not exist. It crept down the wall, never taking its eyes from her. A long, shimmering tail flicked back and forth behind it, the movement of an irritated cat.
For a moment, it was still. Then, so quickly Casey flinched, it snaked out its neck and snatched one of the pierogi in its jaws; she caught a flash of wickedly pointed teeth as it snapped at the leftover takeout, tossing it in the air and catching it again as if it was— Was it… playing?
As if it knew what she was thinking, it froze and looked at her. Its eyes gleamed in the dark.
It snorted, and bright sparks danced along its body.
The effect was immediate. The hair on Casey’s arms and the back of her neck stood on end. She felt the air crackle around her, like static on the driest winter day. She could taste ozone, smell molten metal in the air.
And suddenly it all made sense.
“No wonder the breakers didn’t work,” she said softly. “You were behind the dead front the whole time. You’re the electrical.”
The creature watched her for one moment more. Then, with another one of those static shock snorts, it unfurled its small wings and took flight, lofting itself into the air and back into the breaker box.
It took the pierogi with it.
***
The next morning at work, Casey was a little off her game. A little tired, a little stiff. But even if she’d been at her best, she suspected there was no good way to explain to your boss, a master electrician of twenty years, that your lights didn’t work because your current “electrical system” was a tiny dragon living in your breaker box.
“Whatever the issue is, I’m sure I’ve seen it before.” Scott jerked his head at the far corner of the new build. “Mark fifteen inches off the floor for the boxes over there, would you?” Casey pulled out her tape measure, sat cross-legged on the floor, and began, dutifully, to mark the studs. “I appreciate it, Scott, really I do, but I want to handle it on my own. I know what I’m doing.” And I sincerely, sincerely doubt you’ve seen this issue before.
“You know this apprenticeship? The one where you work for me for the next four years? The point of it is that you don’t know what you’re doing, champ.” Despite the words, Scott’s tone was not unkind. “Once you’re done with those measurements, we’ll put the boxes in and then I’ll have you feed the wire through.”
“Just—I just want to try a little longer.”
“If you say so.” Scott snorted. “Just call me when you give up, and for cripes’ sakes, wear your gloves. An electrocuted apprentice is bad for morale.”
Casey made her way home that afternoon thanking her lucky stars it was a Friday. She had a whole weekend to figure out what to do about the dragon in her basement. Which, granted, didn’t feel like a lot of time, but it was better than nothing.
“Hello?” she called tentatively, dropping her bag and kicking the door shut behind her. “Um… I’m coming down to the basement now, okay?”
There was silence, because of course there was. It was a dragon, not a roommate. It wasn’t like the thing was going to poke its head out of the kitchen and ask if she’d remembered to bring home eggs and toilet paper.
For a moment—just a moment—she considered the possibility that she’d lost her entire mind.
But the basement confirmed that she was sane. Probably, anyway. The mess of wiring still lay in a tangle on the floor, the dead front abandoned in a corner, her carefully printed breaker labels scattered to the winds.
Oh, and there was still a dragon in her wall.
The panel door was wide open, and the tiny reptilian squatter was curled up in the cozy little nest it had created in her breaker box, its wings folded against its back, its tail wrapped around its haunches, resting atop a glimmering hoard of—
“Are those… is that my silverware?”
The dragon did not lift its head, merely gazed at her with a challenge in its bright eyes. My silverware now, it seemed to say.
“You can’t take my silverware!”
It snorted. The heap of forks and knives picked up the electricity and threw off a shower of sparks, and Casey let out a tiny scream.
“Ah. Now I see.”
Casey whirled. Scott stood on the second-to-last stair, hands on his hips. “How—how did you get in?”
“Door was unlocked. After you left, I got to worrying your place might burn down, so I decided to pay a house call.” Scott scratched the side of his neck, considering. “Looks like you’ve got a British Stormsnout.”
“I’ve got a what?” Casey’s voice was faint.
“British Stormsnout. A juvenile.” Scott pulled on his gloves. “They love breaker boxes. Don’t get ‘em much in the Midwest, but every once in a while—”
“Every once in a while?” Her voice squeaked.
Charitably, Scott ignored it. “Gloves on. They’re tricky to relocate, but it’s doable. You might have to give up a couple spoons.” He shrugged. “Usually this is journeyman stuff, but we’ll make an exception today. Lucky you.”
“But—you—electricians work with dragons?”
Scott glanced at her. There was a definite smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “This is nothing, kiddo. Wait ‘til you see what’s in the power plants.”