Wendell pauses. “Just tell her to give me a call, will you? See you soon.”
There’s a beep when Wendell hangs up, and I place the phone receiver back in its cradle.
Ate Nadine doesn’t mind talking to Wendell. But he should know better than to discuss Dad with my sister.
I glance at the desk clock—it’s almost five. The afternoon sun has turned the sterile white walls of Mom’s office orange. It’s so bright it’s hard to see the shed in the garden. It’s hard to see anything outside, for that matter.
Nightfall’s coming.
“Wake up, Lawin.” Sighing, I walk across the room to clean up the crumpled paper mess I made on the floor. The duck stares at me with a beady eye as he stretches his legs.
Pepper and I still don’t have a plan. I’m not even sure there will be one. If only there was a way to get Ate Nadine to work things out with our father, to take me to the resort for my birthday …
As I stand, my gaze falls on the shelf where Mom displays photos of our family. They’re mostly of Ate Nadine, Mom, Tito Ed, and me. Some are of Mom’s parents; a few are of my lolo and lola on Dad’s side.
My favorite is this family photo, the last one we had with my grandmother. It shows my sister, our parents, Tito Ed, Wendell, Lola Cordia, and me smiling at the camera. Behind us is a background of blue, green, and yellow blots. It’s a blurred image of the sky and ylang-ylang trees around my grandmother’s beloved butterfly garden. The day we had the photo taken was the same as today—a humid March summer afternoon.
“Oh!” I cry. Next to the photo on the shelf is a silver locket—my locket. I must have left it on the shelf when I talked to Mom this morning, right after taking a shower.
A breeze enters the room, smelling like grass and ripe mangoes. But it also brings in a shower of dust as it passes through Mom’s old books and journals. Lawin lets out a series of quacks, running around in circles as he frantically flaps his wings.
“Ah-choo!” I rub my eyes once to relieve the itch, blinking as they begin to water. That’s when I see it fluttering into the room—a huge pitch-black butterfly.
The Butterfly.
The one Dad warned me about. I’m sure of it.
My pulse quickens, and goose bumps appear on my arms. I get a sick feeling in my stomach as I remember the stories Dad used to tell me. How the Butterfly appeared days before his cousin drowned. How it warned Dad of a friend’s death before she succumbed to cancer. How Dad listened to Lola Cordia cry herself to sleep after the Butterfly showed her that it was her husband’s turn to die.
“Oh no.” My hands turn clammy and cold. This can’t be happening. “No, no, no.”
I want to shoo the Butterfly away, but I’m too afraid to touch it.
I hold my breath as the Butterfly hovers above the family photos. Don’t land, don’t land, don’t land. It spreads its wings wide, gliding down to land.
The Butterfly goes by our family photos and doesn’t settle on any of the picture frames propped up on the shelf. Instead, it comes to perch on my most prized possession: silver and heart-shaped, attached to a chain of little braided metal.
My locket. The Butterfly landed on my locket.
I’m going to die.
Copyright © 2021 by Gail D. Villanueva
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First edition, April 2021
Cover art © 2021 by Abigail Dela Cruz
Cover design by Baily Crawford
e-ISBN 978-1-338-63094-7
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