The Patron Saint of Butterflies

by Cecilia Galante

  Slowly I take the stones out of my pocket, lining them up one by one on top of my bed. Then I lie down, trying not to wince as they dig and poke into my back. If Saint Rose could do it, then so can I.

  HONEY

  Winky’s butterfly garden is my favorite place to be. Not only is it beautiful—even in the pale light of winter when the furrowed, frozen earth looks like the surface of the moon—but it is also a complete little world all its own. The butterflies’ whole cycle of life—from beginning to end—takes place here. The Believers refer to it only in a patronizing kind of way; I’ve actually heard some of them call it “Winky’s little hobby,” which makes me want to scream. Like he’s down here digging in the dirt with a spoon or something. They have no clue how complex the whole thing is, or how much work Winky has put into it over the years.

  The garden itself is divided into two parts: a weed section and a nectar section. The weed section, which is filled with plants like snapdragons, turtleheads, thistles, wild fennel, mint, sassafras, and violets, is basically one big food source for the caterpillars, which have hatched from eggs the female butterflies have laid earlier. The nectar section consists of flowering plants and bushes, which have been carefully chosen according to the butterfly population in our part of the country. Purple phlox and aster, for example, are some of the Clouded Sulphur butterfly’s favorite flowers. Violets and sassafras are favored by the admirals. We have to check the nectar source plant leaves every day when it starts to get warm, because sometimes the caterpillars wander over there and start eating. When we find them, we transfer them back into the weed section so the nectar source plants have a chance to grow big and healthy.

  This is what Winky and I do for the next hour, pushing back the leaves of every single nectar source plant—there are at least fifty—searching for caterpillars. We work silently, peeling off the tiny worms one by one and, when our palms are full, transporting them back to the opposite end of the garden. Every so often, I look over at the top of Winky’s head, hoping he will raise it again and talk to me, but he stays quiet. I’m not sure which situation he is angrier about: that I have been watching his television without asking, or that I have been watching soap operas again. But I don’t want to ask. I’m afraid it might make things worse. Winky has been angry with me before; once we got into an argument and I blurted out that he was an idiot and he refused to talk to me for two days. They were the two longest days of my life. I did not sleep, and for some reason, the ache inside for my mother, which most days I am able to put on a back burner, intensified like a sharp stick poking at me from the inside out.

  “Hey, Wink?” I venture now. “You still mad?”

  He straightens up, holding a palmful of tiny green worms, and looks directly at me. “Yup.”

  “How mad?” I watch as he turns and strides toward the weed section. Without his belt cord, which he always removes before working in the garden, his robe flaps open in the middle, exposing his ample belly. I make my voice louder. “Sorta mad or mad like you’re not going to talk to me for two days mad?”

  Instead of answering, he pushes the worms from his palm onto a sassafras leaf and then leans down, double-checking to make sure none of them have fallen into the dirt. When he is satisfied, he turns, and as if he has all the time in the world, strolls back toward me.

  “Sorta mad,” he says finally, and then he grins and I know that everything between us is still okay. I smile back at him and then head over toward the weed section with my own worms.

  “Why’re you walking funny?” Winky asks. “You hurt yourself?”

  For an eighth of a second, I wonder what would happen if I broke down and told Winky what Emmanuel and Veronica did to me this morning. But I dismiss the thought just as quickly. What good would telling Winky do? It’s not like he’d be able to do anything about it. I don’t even know if he could comprehend the details. And, oddly enough, the Regulation Room has been Mount Blessing’s dirty little secret for so long that talking about it would feel really weird. I mean, even Agnes and I barely talk about it.

  “Yeah, I was messing around on my bike the other day,” I say. “You know, acting like a goof. I tripped over one of the pedals.”

  Winky starts to respond, but is interrupted by the squeal of tires. A pale green car shoots into view, coming to a halt alongside the lawn. I stare as Nana Pete opens the door of her car and starts marching across the lawn. Something about the way her mouth is set in a straight line is setting off alarm bells in my head.

  “Nana Pete?” I call. “Hi!”

  She beckons me forward with one hand. “Honey! Come with me! Now!”

  Now the bells are ringing really loudly. Usually there is a hug and kiss, a “How have you been, sugar pie? You’ve gotten so tall since I’ve seen you last!” Maybe even a supersize bag of Funyuns hidden behind her back. There is none of that now. My suspicions sharpen even more when I get a glimpse of Benny sitting in the back of the car, staring out the window.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask. “Where’s Agnes?”

  Nana Pete is next to me now, almost out of breath. She leans over and hugs me quickly, as if to get it out of the way.

  “Please darlin’. I’ve been looking for you for over an hour. Please just come with me. I need to talk to you. Right now.” She puts her hands on her hips and looks over at Winky, noticing him all at once.

  “Winky,” she says, extending her hand. “Hello. I don’t know what window my manners flew out of on the way up here, but I do apologize.”

  Winky sticks out a dirty, gloved hand.

  Nana Pete grabs it and pumps it up and down. “Your garden looks absolutely lovely,” she says, surveying the plants. “The nasturtium especially.”

  “Thank you,” he says, looking pleased.

  “You don’t mind if I borrow your helper here for a little while, do you?” Nana Pete asks. “I have to talk to her about something.”

  Winky shakes his head. “Go ’head, Honey. I’ll be here till late.”

  I trot behind Nana Pete down to the car, trying to keep up with her. For an old lady, she can move when she wants to.

  “Where’s Agnes?” I ask again, my hand poised on the handle of the door.

  “Just get in the car, Honey,” Nana Pete answers. Her voice is terse, almost rude. “And shut the door.”

  I slide into the front seat next to her, clutching the armrest as she guns the car down Sanctity Road. Glancing over the backseat, I stare at Benny, hoping to discern any bit of information from him, but he has drawn his knees up under his chin and buried his face into the top of them.

  Nana Pete finally screeches to a halt, coming so close to the edge of the frog pond that I gasp and rear back. She shuts the engine off and turns sideways, looking at me with wild eyes. Her mascara has started to run and her overly rouged cheeks are shiny with perspiration. She looks like a first-class lunatic.

  For the first time, I am frightened. “What?”

  Nana Pete swallows. “What is the Regulation Room? What is it, where is it, and what happens to you inside there?”

  I am so shocked at her barrage of questions that for a moment I am speechless. Then I realize I don’t know what to say. Except for a few painful details here and there with Agnes over the years, I have never discussed the Regulation Room. With anyone. Ever.

  “How’d you find out about that?” I ask finally, struggling to keep my voice from shaking.

  “Agnes.”

  “Agnes?” I repeat.

  “Well, sort of,” Nana Pete says, glancing over at Benny. She is gripping the top of the seat so hard that the soft leather is indented. “Her parents mentioned something earlier about the two of you having been sent for by Emmanuel and well, I don’t know, something about that particular choice of words got me thinking. Then I saw her limping and I kept pestering her to tell me what was wrong … ” Her voice trails off.

  “It was my fault!” Benny wails, lifting his head. “I asked about it on accident.” His face crumples
behind his glasses, as if he has just realized the magnitude of his admission. “I didn’t mean to, Honey. I didn’t know … ” He lowers his face again and begins to sob, his little shoulders heaving up and down. Nana Pete reaches out and touches his knee with her fingertips.

  “Agnes wouldn’t tell me anything,” she says. “But the way she bolted out of the car when I pressed her about it makes me think there is a lot to tell.” Her hand freezes on Benny’s back. “I just want to know if any of you are being hurt, Honey. Please. Tell me the truth.”

  My heart is hammering inside my chest. The tips of my fingers feel tingly. I realize all at once that if I tell Nana Pete the truth about the Regulation Room, a chain of events will probably be set into motion that I will not be able to stop.

  “It’s … just … this room,” I say.

  “And?”

  “And … what?” I bite my lip, unsure why I am stalling.

  “And where is it?”

  “It’s … um … behind Emmanuel’s room.”

  “Behind Emmanuel’s room? Like a hidden door or something?”

  I shrug. “It’s not hidden, really. But there’s a door.”

  “Okay. And what would I see if I opened this door, Honey? Hmmm?”

  My mouth tastes bitter, just thinking of it. “A kneeler,” I say quietly.

  Nana Pete’s face blanches. “What’s a kneeler?”

  “It’s a bench thing you kneel on.”

  “To pray?”

  “No,” I answer. “Not to pray.”

  Nana Pete shakes her head slowly. “What’s it for, then?”

  I stare at the top of Benny’s head. The hairs are so white that it is hard to distinguish them from his scalp.

  “Honey?” Nana Pete presses. “What’s the kneeler for?”

  I wince, thinking of this morning. “He makes us kneel on it and then lean forward.”

  “On your stomach?”

  “Yeah.”

  Nana Pete swallows hard. “Why?”

  A picture of me bent over that damn thing, naked from the waist down, flashes through my head. Suddenly I remember where my shoes are. They had been covered with mud and Veronica made me take them off before I went into Emmanuel’s room. “I don’t want your smelly shoes stinking up the room,” she had said. Her lip curled over the top of her teeth. “Get rid of them.” I was glad that Agnes and Peter had already left; it was humiliating to have to hide my dirty shoes under the bench, and even more awful to walk back inside in my bare feet, which smelled even worse than my shoes.

  “Honey?” Nana Pete says my name so softly that it makes me want to cry. “Honey. What else is in the room?”

  I grit my teeth. “Belts.” Behind me, Benny’s shoulders tighten.

  “Belts?”

  “A wall of them. He makes us choose which one we want him to use before we take our robes off and get on the kneeler.”

  There. It’s out. Finally. But instead of relief, my whole body feels rigid, as if I have been shoved into a too-small compartment and am struggling for air.

  “And then he hits you?” Nana Pete whispers. “With the belts?”

  “Yes.”

  “Once?”

  I almost laugh the question is so ridiculous. “No, not once. Lots of times.”

  “And this … this is where you and Agnes were this morning?” Nana Pete’s lips are trembling. I nod. She wipes her forehead with her fingers. “Do Agnes’s parents know? Have either of you told them?”

  “I’m not sure if they know,” I answer slowly. “But it doesn’t really matter anyway.”

  Benny takes a deep breath and sticks his fingers in his ears.

  Nana Pete doesn’t seem to notice. “Doesn’t matter?” she repeats. “Of course it matters! Do they know what’s happening to you? Do they have—”

  “Hey, Benny,” I say, pulling one of his hands out of his ears. The base of his neck is turning a mottled shade of crimson. “What’re you doing, buddy?”

  Without opening his eyes, he says, “Trying to disappear.”

  “Oh, sugar.” Nana Pete bats gently at Benny’s other hand. “Stop it, sweetie. Look at me.” But Benny just squeezes his eyes tighter.

  I lean in. “Benedict!” His eyes fly open fearfully. “You don’t have to do that,” I say softly. “It’s okay, Benny. It’s just us.” A tear slides down the front of his face, behind his glasses. I wipe it from his cheek with the pad of my thumb. “Listen. Why don’t you go down to the pond and look for that huge bullfrog we’ve been trying to catch? Go ahead. And I’ll come join you in a few minutes.”

  Benny is out of the car before I can finish, leaving the door wide open. There is a horrible, awkward silence as Nana Pete and I watch him squat down at the pond’s edge and stare out at the water. I can feel her gaze shift back over to me, but I don’t turn my head. Not yet.

  “So Agnes’s parents … ,” she begins.

  “Agnes and Benny’s parents know all about the Regulation Room,” I say, drawing my finger down a wide crease in the seat. “Emmanuel has taken them in there several times.”

  Nana Pete’s lips curl back over her teeth. “You mean, they’ve been whipped, too?”

  “Yeah. Most of the Believers have. It’s not just for kids. Emmanuel uses it for the retraining of anyone. That’s why it’s called the Regulation Room.”

  “Retraining,” she murmurs. “My God. What a word. How could Leonard … ” She shakes her head. “I’ve got to do something about this. Right now. Right this minute. I’m going to have to call the police. This is unbelievable. You can’t continue to live here.”

  Something inside of me rises like a wave of heat at her words. Can this really be happening? After all this time? Someone coming in and putting a stop to all of it?

  And then, with a lurch, I think of something. “You can’t call the police,” I say.

  “What do you mean, I can’t? Why not?”

  “If the police come and investigate, we might be taken away.”

  “But that’s a good thing, Honey! That’s the whole point! I don’t want you liv—”

  “But I—I’ll be sent away,” I stutter. “Agnes and Benny will get to go with you, probably, but I’ll be sent to an orphanage or something because I don’t have any parents here. I belong to Emmanuel.”

  Nana Pete gets a strange look on her face. “You don’t belong to Emmanuel.”

  “Well, there’s no paperwork that says otherwise.” A panic is starting to rise within me. “My mother just left me here. With him. And he’s the one in charge. He’s the only one who gets to say what happens to me. If they take him away, that means I’ll have to go, too. And they’ll just put me away somewhere until they get it all straightened out, until everything is legal. Which means that I’ll probably never see any of you again.” I grab on to the sleeve of Nana Pete’s blouse. “Please don’t call the police, Nana Pete. Please. I just … I won’t be able to… I mean, without Agnes, I don’t know if … ” My throat is getting smaller and smaller, until it is a little pinpoint of pain.

  “Honey.” Nana Pete’s voice is firm and calm. “Calm down. No one is going to put you in any sort of orphanage or take you away from Agnes. I promise. But I have to do something. There’s no way I’m going back to Texas now that I know all of this.”

  “Then take us with you!” I blurt out.

  “What?”

  “Just take us! Take us! We’ll sneak away at night when everyone is at evening prayers or something and just leave!”

  “Oh, Honey.” Nana Pete’s voice is faint. “I can’t do that, darlin’. That’s kidnapping. I would get arrested, maybe even sent to jail.”

  “But it’s not kidnapping if we want to go with you,” I plead. “Or if you’re taking us out of here because we’re being hurt. Please, Nana Pete, it’s the only way! Just take us and leave. Then we can all be together, at least until everything gets straightened out.”

  “But what about Leonard and Samantha?” she asks. It takes me a minute to rea
lize she is talking about Agnes’s parents. “They would never come with us. And I don’t want to be responsible for breaking up the family … ”

  “The family, Nana Pete, is not what it is supposed to be. Emmanuel is the real father here. And Veronica is the mother. Agnes and her parents are complete strangers to one another.”

  “But they’re her parents!” Nana Pete says. “Emmanuel isn’t … ”

  “Yes, he is.” I finish the statement for her. “After all these years of coming to visit us, how can you not see it, Nana Pete? Why do you think all the kids live in the nursery for the first seven years instead of with their real parents?” I breathe in deeply through my nose. “It’s so that whole … parent-kid thing … that bond … can be broken. He wants it attached to him. Not them.”

  Nana Pete is looking at me incredulously. I know what she is thinking. Like Agnes, Mount Blessing is all I have ever known. How is it that I have managed not only to remain unaffected by Emmanuel’s ways, but to figure out how deeply everyone else has been? I look out the window again at Benny. He is still crouched down on the edge of the pond, scanning the smooth surface for frog eyes. He looks so small. “I watch TV, okay?” I say suddenly, knowing she is waiting for some sort of explanation. “I know what it’s supposed to be like out in the real world.”

  “TV? But I thought you weren’t allowed … ”

  I shrug. “Winky has one. It’s real tiny and it doesn’t work very well. It only has three channels. But I’ve seen enough things on it to know that this place is a freak show. I know most people don’t live like this.”

  Nana Pete stares at something above my head and shakes her head slowly. “Why haven’t you said anything to me before about the Regulation Room, darlin’?”

  Her question stops me cold. I’m not sure if I even know the answer. The easy explanation is that it has never come up. There have never been any Regulation Room visits in August, when Nana Pete usually comes to visit. Is that a coincidence? Has it really taken something as simple as Nana Pete dropping in unexpectedly for Emmanuel’s ugly secret to be unearthed? Or is it something more complex? Have I been afraid all these years of exposing him? Does Emmanuel really have that kind of power over me? The thought makes me angry.