When the Butterflies Came

by Kimberley Griffiths Little

  The hallways are narrow and dark, the light from the moon painting the tall windows at the end a grayish color. I slow down when I reach the steps that lead up to Grammy Claire’s laboratory.

  There’s no air-conditioning up here and the small staircase closes in on me. I’m perspiring, the hair on my neck heavy and hot.

  Pipe organ music comes through the walls and I try not to shudder as the shadows watch me. It’s spooky being up in the middle of the night, alone. I try not to pull the chain for the hallway light. Try not to creak the floorboards, like Madame See. Seeing her creeping around the house in the middle of the night still freaks me out. She has her own bathroom. There’s no reason for her to be upstairs.

  The purple nipwisipwis flutters wildly at my ear, and it comforts me. Like it’s watching over me, and strangely, I don’t feel so alone.

  When I insert the key, I can hear my heart thudding inside my head. Thwap, thwap, thwap! Thud. My fingers tingle as I touch the doorknob and turn it, but the door isn’t locked! I must have forgotten when Riley and I left. How could I be so stupid?

  Did someone else have a key? Maybe someone had broken in, like they tried to do at Grammy Claire’s bedroom door? Someone — like Madame See? I turn cold and clammy as the thumping in my throat grows stronger. I think I’m gonna choke. The Butterfly Garden was left unattended and it’s my fault. My mind whirls with possibilities. The door doesn’t feel like it was broken into. Nothing is jammed into the keyhole or bent. When I grabbed Key Number Five a few minutes earlier, it was still in its place, right where I’d put it.

  Someone else has a copy of the key to this room!

  The door creaks as it opens and the sound makes me jump. I wonder if everyone downstairs can hear it — if they know I’m up here.

  I wonder if Madame See will hear me and return. I’m not sure I can look her in the face again. What if she’s a thief? Or an escapee from a mental hospital? Did Butler Reginald get good references for her?

  My sweaty fingers grip the edge of the door, staring into the shadows of the garden room until my eyesight blurs. When I finally step through, my feet are icy cold. Goose bumps run up and down my legs. Maybe I should just leave and run back to my bed.

  But the purple butterfly won’t let me go back. It keeps fluttering behind me, not letting me turn around. Keeping me on an invisible leash like I’m a human pet. It would be funny if I weren’t so scared.

  When I glance upward, my stomach soars straight into my throat.

  The sky through the windows above is beautiful. Starry and glittery like someone sprinkled glue and then shook a bottle of sparkly confetti. The moon glows silver. The entire garden is bathed in the moon’s light and I don’t need to turn on any lights.

  I start circling the room, wondering if the purple butterfly with its yellow-tipped wings will show me which direction it wants me to go.

  I walk over to Grammy Claire’s desk and the butterfly darts in the opposite direction. Then hovers waiting for me to catch up. Like we’re playing Hot and Cold. I get Warmer when the butterfly leads me into the center of the garden. I try not to look at all the corpses, the dusty, broken wings, the pile of small blue butterflies. We stop at the round table underneath the rose arbor. The table where I found Grammy Claire’s envelope earlier today.

  I still have the flashlight so I click it on, and the table comes clearly into view. It’s a table without dust, which is strange, but there is something else lying on its surface. Something horrifying. The air shudders; music vibrates. I’m vaguely aware that the music sounds different. It’s closer. Right in my ear. And it’s not the wheezy pipe organ music.

  But I can’t figure out where it’s coming from because my throat closes up, even though I want to scream real bad. On the table lies the Giant Pink butterfly. The one that burst through the window in Grammy Claire’s bedroom. I know the shades of pink and ribbons of green. The remarkable size of such a magnificent butterfly.

  “Nipwisipwis,” I whisper, and my voice chokes.

  The Giant Pink is dead. Its wings torn apart, its body broken, its antennae —

  I turn away, covering my face, and then I’m crying, bawling my eyes out. My chest hurts, my stomach clenches. I think I might throw up.

  The purple butterfly zooms right into my face and my eyes are so blurry it looks like its attacking me. Then I realize, with a huge shock, that it’s trying to comfort me. Or maybe it wants me to comfort it.

  I hold out my hand and the butterfly finally alights, its frantic wings slowing, its little eyes staring at me.

  “Nipwisipwis,” I say again, and then I give a start when the butterfly cocks its head at me, as though it’s listening. “What happened here? How did she die?”

  And then I start to cry even harder because I know deep in my heart that the Giant Pink butterfly didn’t die of old age.

  It didn’t have an accident.

  Its life span didn’t just run out.

  It was murdered.

  I’ll be floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.

  ~MUHAMMAD ALI~

  How could such a horrible thing have happened? And it’s my fault. I’m the one that killed it because I didn’t lock the door properly. I didn’t take care of the nipwisipwis like Grammy Claire asked me to. I let her down. I failed.

  I glance up, wondering if my grandmother can see me from heaven, knowing how disappointed she is in me. “I’m so sorry!” I sob, sinking to my knees in front of the table where the giant butterfly lies smashed to pieces. “I’m sorry,” I repeat, knowing that I’m not only telling my dead grandmother how terrible I feel. Now I’m talking to the Giant Pink, too. And the purple butterfly who led me here.

  Madame See had been upstairs. I heard her come down the main staircase. I saw her with my own eyes, and there’s a good chance she might have been up here in the laboratory snooping around. Our cook might be a butterfly killer! Grammy Claire said I could trust Butler Reginald, but she didn’t breathe a word about her cook and housekeeper.

  Through blurry eyes, I glance around the garden room. There isn’t another butterfly like it. No other pink corpses. Because of my carelessness, I helped kill a species that was about to become extinct.

  The thought of that just makes me cry even harder. My nose drips until I’m miserably soggy. Taking the edge of my nightgown, I wipe my face because there aren’t any tissues. And I’m not a girl who wipes her nose on her own clothes!

  Am I having a breakdown like Mamma? The idea terrifies me, but I can’t think about her right now.

  The purple butterfly moves to my arm, soft as a whisper, so light I can barely feel it. The wings stay closed, like it’s bowed over and mourning its friend, the Giant Pink.

  Tears keep dribbling out of my eyes as I glance up at the sky glittering with jeweled stars. “Grammy Claire, I need you. I need you so bad. Everything is a mess. Mamma, Riley, the butterflies. I don’t know what to do! Tell me what I’m supposed to do!”

  Riley.

  The thought of my sister makes my face heat up.

  Riley smashed that moth back home. On her dresser. Didn’t even think twice about it. Didn’t even care that it wasn’t really a moth. That it was actually a butterfly.

  Did she do this? Perhaps my own sister is the killer. She does have a past record.

  Maybe the Giant Pink flapped in her hair, scared her. It is humongous.

  ’Course, it doesn’t make any sense that Riley would follow it up to the top of the house and splatter it all over the table. And she certainly wouldn’t smash it in Grammy Claire’s bedroom and then bring it here. I glance at the smear of pink-and-brown wings against the wood and it makes me sick.

  Riley and I had been getting along better the past two days, but suddenly I hate my sister. Hate her now more than I ever have in my whole life. Anger surges in my gut. My head pounds. I want Riley to go back home. Or go to California. I wouldn’t give two hoots if she spent the rest of her life on the beach until she rotted away in the san
d. I hate Daddy, too, who hardly ever calls, and wouldn’t even come to Grammy Claire’s funeral. My own mamma doesn’t care enough about me to get her sorry self out of the South Wing and live like a normal person.

  Suddenly, I hate everything and everybody.

  “Stay here and stand guard,” I tell the purple butterfly. “If someone comes, fly through that slit in the window and escape.” I wonder where the translucent butterfly got to. It’s hard to see in the dim light. Shadows of laboratory equipment and shelves of old books and filing cabinets surround me like quiet statues.

  It must be out flying or sitting somewhere sleeping. I just hope it’s safe. Shivers run along my arms as I wonder if the invisible, mirrorlike butterfly is watching me right now.

  The purple butterfly flies down to the table again where the pink lies. Folding its wings, the creature goes still. Like it’s guarding the deathbed of its best friend.

  Who would have thought? Is this what Grammy Claire was researching? Intelligent butterflies? The idea is mind-boggling crazy.

  Maybe it’s a sign that I’m crazy. Maybe I’m dreaming this whole thing!

  But deep in my heart, I know I’m not.

  When I leave the laboratory, I lock the door very deliberately, double-check it, and stomp downstairs to Riley’s bedroom.

  I slam the door open, cringing a little about waking up Butler Reginald and Madame See. But they’re old and it’s a long ways downstairs so they probably can’t hear what’s happening up here anyway.

  Riley appears asleep. Only a sheet covers her, and one bare foot is hanging out.

  She doesn’t move when I walk in and close the door. I feel hiccups coming on from all the crying, but I suck it in and stride over to the bed, ripping off the covers.

  Suddenly, Riley opens her eyes and stares at me. I jump just a little. It’s creepy the way she opens her eyes like a zombie waking up from the dead. She pops the earbuds out of her ears. The sound of hard rock comes through the little black pieces.

  “What are you doing listening to music at two in the morning?”

  “What are you doing awake and wandering around? Didn’t you ever hear of knocking first?”

  “I didn’t think you’d wake up if I knocked.”

  She rises on her elbows and peers into my face. “You sleepwalking, Tara?”

  “Of course not. I’m not a girl who sleepwalks.”

  “Always a first time for everything.”

  “I came in here to tell you that I hate you. I hate you!” I repeat for emphasis, wanting to throw something.

  She yawns, big and loud. “That’s nothing new.”

  “How could you kill it?” I shriek. “You’re a murderer!”

  She sits up, her spiky hair sticking out in weird angles. “Have you lost your friggin’ Pantene Princess mind?”

  The smashed-up butterfly is imprinted on my brain, and everything feels bleak and miserable. “They would never hurt you! Those butterflies are special, can’t you tell? They were Grammy Claire’s butterflies! I’m supposed to protect them!”

  Riley switches on her bedside lamp, and I blink in the bright light after wandering the dark house for an hour. “You don’t make a lick of sense. Grammy Claire’s butterflies?” She stares at me. “Oh, you mean that Butterfly Garden in her lab upstairs.”

  “I saw it, all smashed on the table. You’re not only a serial killer, you’re — you’re sadistic!”

  She cocks one of her plucked eyebrows. “Wow, what a big word; where’d you learn that?”

  I’m getting better at rolling my eyes. “From your music albums, where else?”

  She snorts and lies back down. “Oh, you mean that group called Sadistic Rain?”

  “You’re the only one who knew the butterflies lived there.”

  “Yeah, because I was with you, remember? They’ve probably been in there for a long time. Died while Grammy Claire was gone this past year.”

  “I’m talking about a Giant Pink that was alive. It flew into Grammy Claire’s bedroom yesterday.”

  “Never saw it, don’t know what you’re talking about. Can I go to sleep now?”

  Frustration makes me shake. “Why are you still awake?”

  “I always listen to music while I fall asleep.”

  “It’s the middle of the night.”

  She shrugs. “I was talking to Brad. We usually say a second good-bye on the phone after a date.”

  I never knew my sister was so romantic. The latest note in my hand is getting wrinkly with sweat from my palm. “You never saw a Giant Pink butterfly?”

  Riley sighs. “No! You’re running around in the middle of the night chasing butterflies?”

  “I —” I stop, not willing to trust her. “I wasn’t doing nothing.”

  She gives me a look. “Yeah, right. And I’m Dracula’s daughter. Go to bed, Tara. You’re starting to bug me. I’m tired.”

  I’m tired, too, but I don’t say it. My mind is whirring away. “You promise, cross your heart and hope to die, that you didn’t see that butterfly and kill it up in the Butterfly Garden?”

  She flops back onto her pillow, reaching for her earphones again. “Promise, cross my heart, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “Soooo,” I say slowly. “If you didn’t kill the butterfly, who did?”

  “I guess you’re gonna have to figure that out all on your own,” Riley says. “But I got an alibi.”

  I frown at her. “What do you mean?”

  “An alibi. That’s a police term for proving I wasn’t anywhere near the scene of the crime. I was out with Brad, remember? So I couldn’t have killed no butterfly. Get it?”

  “You were out with Brad,” I repeat, feeling my anger deflate. She’s right. She does have an alibi.

  “Uh-huh.” She shuts her eyes and shuts me out at the same time.

  I mutter a couple of curse words, and then punch the mattress. “So that means you left me here with a killer! Alone!”

  “Give it up, Tara.” Riley rolls over and starts to snore.

  When I close her bedroom door, I stare straight up at the ceiling, pretending I can see through the two floors above me into the Secret Butterfly Garden, even though I actually can’t. What if all those species are going extinct? The purple and pink and transparent as well as the dead blue ones? Maybe Grammy Claire was trying to save them. Maybe she was breeding them so the world wouldn’t lose them forever.

  The ends of my hair are wet by the time I finish sucking on them and crawl back into bed. I peel back my fingers and look at the crumpled note. The ink has stained the skin of my hand.

  I read the words one last time. I should have already burned the note, but I’m too tired. Unless someone kidnaps me in my sleep, I’ll hang on to it until I can flush the pieces down the toilet.

  A second later, I jump up and make sure the windows are locked. Then I get up a third time and double-check the lock on my door. Finally, I crawl under the cool sheets for the last time, triple-checking the box of keys.

  I stare at the smudged note before I turn out the light.

  Hide this money! Now repeat that seven times. You will need good old Ben on your journey. Key Number Seven will show you where you’re going and have further instructions.

  “Hide the money, hide the money, hide the money.” I murmur it seven times, burying my head into the downy pillow. The money in the suitcase should be safe right where it is. I already burned the clue to the makeup case, and nobody saw me go into the closet after midnight. I just hope Butler Reginald doesn’t get it into his head to do some spring cleaning under the stairs. Or pack up Grammy Claire’s possessions for a yard sale.

  Benjamin Franklin’s face printed on all those hundred-dollar bills floats before my closed eyes. “Good old Ben on my journey,” I repeat. “Ah!” I sit up so fast I whack my skull on the headboard.

  I know what Key Number Seven unlocks.

  The clue is in the note after all.

  There’s a reason Grammy Claire stuffed hundred-dollar
bills and not a pile of twenties into that secret compartment. Now it all makes perfect sense.

  How does one become a butterfly? You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.

  ~ANONYMOUS~

  Naturally, I oversleep the next morning, and when I wake, the sun is hot on my face. I pull on shorts and a T-shirt as fast as I can, then socks and sneakers instead of sandals. I’m going somewhere real dirty.

  In the bathroom, I burn the little scrap of smeared paper I held on to all night long. The black, burned pieces flutter into the toilet and I flush. Twice, for good measure. Then I wash the ink off my hand, scrub the sleep out of my eyes, and brush my teeth.

  When I pound down the curving staircase, I don’t smell breakfast cooking. Butler Reginald is vacuuming the great room and has a tray of cleaning supplies to wax the furniture, dust the clocks, and mop the fading ceramic-tiled floor.

  “Good morning, Miss Tara,” he says, waving a gloved hand.

  “Um, are there any eggs or toast?” I ask.

  “Madame See left a note informing me that she was off to the grocery store. We hadn’t laid up too many days of supplies,” he adds in his soothing accent. “But she left fruit and some homemade bread and honey on the table. Help yourself.”

  I’m relieved our cook isn’t here and I don’t have to face her. “Madame See can drive a car?”

  “Of course, Miss Tara. Why not?”

  “I just — well, I just didn’t think she knew much English.”

  “It’s difficult to live in America and not drive, isn’t it?” Reginald says musingly. “She doesn’t say too much, but I believe she can read English well enough. Many people aren’t comfortable in a second language.”

  “Well, I’m going down to the bayou for a while,” I tell him, fibbing right to his face. “Wanna see if the baby frogs are out yet.”

  “Right-o,” Reginald says. “I did that myself as a boy on holiday, but didn’t realize girls liked to frog hunt as well.”

  “Just depends on the girl, I guess,” I tell him, crossing my fingers behind my back, since I’m not a girl who ever goes frog hunting. I might run up and down a pier to scare some new kid at school, but frogging is best left for boys. And girls like Livie Mouton whose family eats them for Sunday supper.