The setup/payoff of Swezey/Fabulous Don/Midnight Delight really worked for me. By the time Bat & Mina came into this sequence, I was primed for that conversation. Well done!
Also, the lighthouse backstory with the non-sequitur words reminded a little of VanderMeer's Annihilation. (But only in the loosest sense in that I wouldn't be surprised if you hadn't read or that if you did it was the faintest of homages.)
The Midnight Delight
The setup/payoff of Swezey/Fabulous Don/Midnight Delight really worked for me. By the time Bat & Mina came into this sequence, I was primed for that conversation. Well done!
Also, the lighthouse backstory with the non-sequitur words reminded a little of VanderMeer's Annihilation. (But only in the loosest sense in that I wouldn't be surprised if you hadn't read or that if you did it was the faintest of homages.)
"looking like the tail end of an upsetting prom night"
We've all been there. Am I right!
"so she forcibly evicted the old keeper via feral pig" is a real gem of a phrase, slid past so deftly that I almost missed it entirely …