When the Butterflies Came

by Kimberley Griffiths Little

  “Would your Grammy Claire want you so close to where the alligators nest? I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this excursion.”

  I wave my hand as I slink toward the door. “Oh, don’t you know? Alligators are more scared of us than we are of them.”

  Butler Reginald puzzles over this as I pound out of the great room, setting off the pipe organ. The eerie music floats down the hall while I grab a bunch of grapes from the antique sideboard, a slab of bread and honey, and head for the back door — the same vine-draped door that Key Number One opened on our first day.

  I pat the pocket of my shorts where Key Number Seven lies securely.

  Popping grapes into my mouth, I head down to the banks, sitting on a stump under the shade of a cypress. Spanish moss floats over my head in grayish swags of drapery.

  Chocolate-colored water laps the shoreline. The current swirls around a cluster of cypress knees that stick out of the mud like gnarly witch fingers.

  I see the shape of a V moving out in the middle of the bayou and watch a nutria poke its head up, carrying a stick between his teeth. A heron calls from somewhere across the water and the cypress forest on the opposite shore is thick and silent as a swamp.

  I gulp down the last bite of bread and lick my fingers. Under cover of the trees, I sneak back through the tall weeds and overgrown flower beds and head for the barn. Red paint peels in long strips, and a fence encloses part of the acreage where Grammy Claire used to ride her horse.

  Last summer I got to practice riding the gelding. Grammy Claire borrowed a neighbor’s horse and we went riding along the bayou together in the morning before it got too hot.

  I smile to myself. My grandmother’s horse was named Ben.

  Short for Benjamin Franklin.

  “Very tricky, Grammy Claire,” I murmur, dashing for the door of the barn where a padlock hangs hooked through a metal latch. “Yes, yes, yes!” I cry, pulling out the key. My hands are shaking so bad it takes me thirty seconds to get the key in right and yank the round, solid bolt out of its slot in the lock.

  I pull open the door, scoot inside, and lean against the rough wooden door. Dust streams through a bank of windows, reminding me of the day the first butterfly came.

  That seems so long ago now, but it’s only been three days. “Okay, Grammy Claire,” I say out loud. My voice is muted by bales of hay and a dusting of straw on the cypress plank floor. “Where’d you hide the next clue?”

  Old Ben’s gear still hangs on the walls. Saddles and frayed rope. An old steel trough has been shoved into the corner; otherwise the barn is empty. Ben must have been sold. A big room with an extra-tall roof. Hotter than heck. Airless. Sweat dribbles down my face and the nasty smell of manure lingers.

  My eyes scan the walls and I wonder where the next letter is. Hope someone else hasn’t found it. I picture Grammy Claire hiding the letters, boxing up the keys before she died. Did she do it last summer or longer ago than that, thinking I’d be lots older? Probably, but I’ll never know.

  The barn is so empty … no hiding places.

  Was I wrong that the clue about Ben should lead me here?

  Sucking on my hair, I start circling the building. The tools and riding equipment are rusting. There aren’t any taped letters anywhere. ’Course, if Grammy Claire put them in the barn, it would be obvious to anybody who walked in the door!

  Ben’s watering trough! That has to be it! Just like that envelope taped under Grammy Claire’s bed.

  I sweep my hands through dirt and bugs in the bottom of the steel tub, gulping hard so I don’t throw up. After stirring up the straw, I know there ain’t a thing under that layer of filth.

  Next I try to look underneath the trough, but after pushing and pulling, it’s so heavy I can’t budge it. Grammy Claire knew I wouldn’t be able to move it by myself. Or am I supposed to get Riley to help me push it over so I can look at the bottom of it? Should I trust her now?

  I blow out a big breath of air and rub a hand across my hot face.

  I want to hold Grammy Claire’s last words and secrets and notes close to my heart. Just for myself. Maybe it’s selfish — but the letters, the clues, the keys — are all I have left of her.

  I stare at the walls, the roof’s peaked beams, the high windows. Scuff my feet along the floor. Nothing is under all that straw. There is nothing else here!

  I want to cry.

  I want a shower.

  I want some chocolate chip cookies. And ice-cold milk.

  I want to jump into the bayou and get the sweat off, but there’s probably gators and I’m not stupid enough to get eaten.

  “Think, think, think,” I say, walking back outside. I was so sure I’d been right! Benjamin Franklin hundred-dollar bills. Ben, the old horse, who liked to nibble on my fingers when I ran out of apples. And I’m not a girl who lets animals snack on her fingers.

  My nose starts running as I blink back all that stupid water filling up my eyes again.

  Pressing my back against the barn door, I think back on the last two letters. Grammy Claire kept talking about a journey. Money for a journey. Secret journeys. Going on a journey that the next key would reveal.

  So far Ben and the barn hadn’t revealed a goll dern thing.

  Okay. Horses took you on a journey. Suitcases were vital on a journey. Money helped you buy plane tickets and souvenirs and meals. What else is out here on the property that has anything to do with a journey?

  I bite my lips as I lock the padlock and stick Key Number Seven back into my pocket. Walking around the barn, I keep to the shade, but even the shade is hotter than heck. Not a breeze ripples the surface of the bayou. The whole world has come to a sluggish standstill.

  I keep walking, wondering how Mamma’s doing. Even though I like Butler Reginald’s proper London accent, I’m not sure I want to stay here all summer. I wonder if it’s very dangerous to take Grammy Claire’s skiff out on the water by myself. I wonder if Riley will go with me. Probably not. Maybe Butler Reginald will go with me. When he’s not cleaning or shopping, he’s talking on his cell phone a lot. He told me that he has relatives and friends both here and in England, and now that he’s back in the States it’s easier to telephone than on the island where phone service is spotty and unreliable.

  I find myself staring across the property at Grammy Claire’s old boat.

  Journeys! Boats!

  Jumping over a tangled bush, I race to the water’s edge. The cypress pirogue is tied up on a rack. Stained, and splintery, and upside down.

  I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that Key Number Seven unlocking the barn was a decoy to put somebody off the trail. Without the clues I burned, nobody would know where exactly to look.

  I place my hands on my hips. There’s nothing taped to the pirogue. Or tied to it, or glued to it. Finally, I get on my hands and knees and crawl under, scratching my legs on sharp, prickly grass. Lying on my back, I look up inside the shadowy, hollowed-out boat.

  I don’t see anything. Anything! I cover my eyes with my hands, feeling a sob jump into my throat. I’ve run out of clues. My brain is fried. Maybe I have heatstroke.

  Grammy Claire is gone and I’m never gonna see her again. The knowledge of that crashes over me all over again. So painful I think somebody punched me in the chest. I cry for a while, feeling sorry for myself.

  When a beetle starts crawling up my shirt, I let out a yell and sit up, whacking my head on the wooden seat of the boat.

  “Ouch! Goll dern it!” I’m suddenly so mad I want to spit, and I am not a girl who spits. But there are some days I do want to be a girl who spits.

  Rubbing my forehead, I realize that when I’m sitting up most of my body is inside the boat. The world is blocked out, light chinking where the grass meets the edge of the cypress. Reminds me of the tight, suffocating space under Grammy Claire’s bed.

  I get on my knees, flick at a few more beetles, then brush my hands against the wooden slats of the bottom of the boat, hoping I won’t find a spider’s nest.
Something crackles.

  I start laughing as I rip off a wad of tape and then an envelope.

  “Miss Tara,” a voice says from the other side of the cypress.

  “Um, yeah,” I say, still on my knees, my head inside the pirogue.

  Butler Reginald’s voice comes again. “Are you quite all right, dear girl? Shall I help you out from under there?”

  “Um, sure.” I realize that I could conk my head again if I try to unfold my legs and arms from around the two bench seats sticking upside down from the bottom of the canoe.

  “Easy does it,” Reginald says, helping me slide my arms down. “A bit lower now; turn your head to the right. There you go. You’ve got it.”

  Leaving the envelope where it is for the moment, sunshine stings my eyes as I crawl out and slowly get to my feet.

  Butler Reginald squints at me, gardening gloves on his hands. A wheelbarrow filled with dead branches sits near a hedge of azaleas. He even does yard work. “I’m sorry if I’ve interrupted your time alone, Miss Tara.”

  I blink at him. “That’s okay.”

  He gazes out at the bayou with its slow-moving water. “I miss her, your Grammy Claire. After so many years working together and traveling and facing dangers — it’s just difficult to believe that she’s gone.”

  I nod at Butler Reginald, realizing again that he’s mourning her, too. That he’s sad and in shock like the rest of us.

  “Sometimes there are no words to express such a great loss, are there?” he adds softly, and then sniffs. “Well! Back to work. At least we can put her old home back to rights.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper, not moving a muscle as he hefts the wheelbarrow and walks it around the side of the house. “See you later!” I call out. He lifts a hand to me and then disappears.

  Quickly, I crawl back under the boat, grab the large manila envelope, and clutch it to my chest. My name is on the front and the seal is mashed together with an enormous puddle of unbroken purple sealing wax.

  I’m thrilled to pieces I found the next clues — and there are only three more keys left! I run straight for the water’s edge so I can be alone, my heart pounding so hard I think it’s gonna burst. I find a tree stump where it’s not too muddy. Water bugs skim the surface and a few mosquitoes try to check out my ears but I swat them away and break the purple wax seal.

  Several items spill out all at once. “Oh, no!” I cry out, grabbing at them before they can float away under the elephant ears.

  There’s a map! Undoing all the folds and creases, I see lots of blue. And a string of islands. The heading reads Micronesia and Islands of Chuuk. I start giggling at the islands’ names I can’t read because they’re in the language of — what? Chuuk? Chuukese? I’m not even sure how to pronounce that.

  I run my finger over lagoons and grottos and a bay and more tiny islands spreading out across the blue of the South Pacific. There are a few towns on the islands, but not many. Small mountains, but not very high. I wonder if there are waterfalls. I’ve always wanted to swim in a waterfall.

  Black Xs are marked on the map. One X is a mile from some village. Another X is on a part of the island where there are lots of pools and lagoons and inlets and a ridge of cliffs. The third X lies close to the beach.

  With Grammy Claire gone, I’ll never know what those Xs mean.

  Chewing on my hair, I stare across the bayou, reminding myself that I still have Grammy Claire’s house. And her letters. And the memory of her love to hold deep inside my heart.

  Tucking my knees tight under my chin, I also know that it’s not enough.

  Riley’s not enough.

  Mamma’s nowhere close to enough.

  And Butler Reginald ain’t even in the ballpark of knowing how to comfort me.

  After folding up the map again, I retrieve the white envelope tucked inside the big manila one. Actually, there are two white envelopes, one more bulky than the other. I open it first, curious. And out drop four airline tickets.

  Four airline tickets!

  The tickets look like coupon books, and as I peel back the layers, I see that the tickets were booked with the Chuuk Travel Agency. Booked without dates, open-ended tickets for coming and going. I’m so astonished I think I have a whole kaleidoscope of nipwisipwis flying around in my stomach!

  There’s a ticket with my name on it, Riley’s name, Mamma’s name, and Reginald Godwin’s.

  I’m going to the islands of Chuuk! I really am going! “Oh, Grammy Claire,” I whisper. “You knew I would still want to go, you knew it. Thank you, thank you!”

  Finally, I open the second envelope.

  Dearest Tara,

  You probably think it’s silly and overly cautious, but I arranged all of this just in case. Lately, my work on Chuuk has become dangerous. For two years I’ve been watched. Someone is stealing from me. I don’t know who, but I’m absolutely certain of why. That’s why I’m taking precautions — and why I insist that you burn the clues. And why I’ve put you through so many keys and letters and cryptic notes. I pray the envelopes’ seals remain unbroken, and that you find them all.

  Someone wants to hurt the nipwisipwis. To steal them, and destroy them. I cannot allow that to happen. They are precious. They hold a secret the world is not ready for, but which someone is willing to kill for. I often make myself crazy thinking about each person I know on the island and wondering who wants the butterflies. And who might want me dead.

  A horrible thought crashes across my brain, and I nearly fall off the stump. My sneakers squish in the mud as I try to stay seated. Grammy Claire’s work was dangerous? Could this be why she died? Because of her secret nipwisipwis? Someone was watching her, stealing from her?

  Cold drenches my entire body as a horrible thought knocks me over. Was my grandmother killed? Murdered? The car accident … maybe it was not an accident at all?

  Tears splash onto the slick cover of the map, and I’m hardly breathing as I read the rest of the letter.

  My list of suspects is fairly small, but frightening. Because I know them all personally. And yet, I’m in the dark about potential motives.

  1. Alvios

  2. Tafko

  3. Mr. Masako

  4. Family members of Alvios?

  5. Mr. Masako’s brother, Klate Masako, who used to be in prison for theft?

  6. Members of the island government, the mayor?

  7. Scientists at the Institute of Research for Lepidoptera? But they’re all in Guam!

  8. Reluctantly, I add the name Eloni, and he’s just a child!

  The most important reason you and your mamma and sister are going to the island is for the reading of my will. Reginald Godwin being my butler is a bit of a joke between him and me. He is not a butler in the traditional sense. Mostly, he’s a trusted friend, personal bodyguard on my travels, and my attorney. My will is kept in a security box at the village bank. You will find it — with the right key — the date and time are in a future letter.

  The other reason, Tara, and just as important, is that I want you to see the island where I’ve been living and working the past five years. I want you to experience how special it is and the wonderful people there. And I want you to see my spectacular nipwisipwis. I can’t wait to look down from heaven and watch you. In Chuukese, they call heaven naangenu, the place we came from and the place we return after death. Wherever I am, I will be with you in spirit. Always.

  All my love forever,

  Your Grammy Claire

  “You forgot a name,” I whisper after I finish reading the letter. “Madame See. Maybe she’s the one you feel watching you, hovering in the background. Spying on you. Because she’s tricky. She fooled Butler Reginald enough so that he would let her come here to the bayou. So she can snoop right in your very own house. Which makes her even more dangerous.”

  My stomach does several queasy flips as I run my hands over the creamy stationery paper. “But I know she’s watching. And now I’m watching her.”

  We delight in
the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

  ~MAYA ANGELOU~

  I picture Grammy Claire sitting at the desk in her laboratory writing the letters, assembling the keys, humming, and smiling. She thought she was leaving the keys and clues for me in case she died of an illness or had an accident. But she did it because she was going to be murdered. My Grammy Claire was killed. The car accident was on purpose.

  I’m so sick to my stomach, I think I’m going to puke any second.

  My mind goes back over the past two weeks. Our telephone ringing off the hook with calls from the police and the Bayou Bridge attorney’s office. A police report arriving special delivery. Miz Landry taking everything up to Mamma in the South Wing while I cried in my room and beat my pillow.

  That’s probably why Mamma went into hiding. She can’t face that Grammy Claire might have been murdered. Murdered because of the nipwisipwis.

  Gripping the brochure and the letter, I close my eyes. It’s like a nightmare.

  With Grammy Claire dead, the killer is now free to steal her research. And steal the butterflies. The nipwisipwis are completely unprotected without her.

  Goose bumps break out along my arms and legs. The killer must have come to Grammy Claire’s house first. Killed the butterflies in the laboratory. Or taken any that were still alive.

  Which meant the killer had been here at this house before Riley and I arrived. And they were most likely already back at the island, taking everything out of Grammy Claire’s laboratory.

  Now I understood the secrecy of Grammy Claire’s letters, the urgency, the precautions she’d taken, the clues that only I could figure out.

  After stuffing the letters and airline tickets back into the envelope, I roll off the stump onto my knees, shudders crawling up my back. Breakfast rises into my throat as I stare into the cypress and tupelo. Shade dances across my face as I try to hold still. I will not throw up. I will not.