It’s as if a hand shoves me forward, right into Winky’s heavy arms. And even though it’s the closest I’ve ever been to him and I’m scared to touch him, I hold him tight around the waist. He smells like sun-warmed starch and wet dirt, just like Honey used to after working in the garden all day.
Two policemen, one tall and thin, the other round and chubby, walk out of Emmanuel’s room just as I return from talking to Winky. Emmanuel and Veronica are behind them, following closely at their heels. Emmanuel’s bearded chin is jutting out over the collar of his robe and Veronica keeps clasping and unclasping her hands, which, for some reason, are red and bleeding. Both of them look as if they are on their way to a funeral. The policemen, too, seem grave. The chubby one is studying the front page of a tiny notebook in his hand, while the tall one is scanning the crowd.
“We need to talk to the children,” the tall one says finally, facing us in the middle of the room and hooking his thumbs behind one of his belt loops. “Just the children. No one else.”
There is a rush of whispers among the adults, as the children look up at their parents fearfully. Benny slides closer to Mom. Dad is glowering at the tall policeman. No one moves.
“Now, please,” the policeman says. “Children only.”
Still no movement.
Emmanuel takes a step forward. “It’s all right,” he says. His arms are lifted high above us, as if he is going to start preaching, but his voice sounds weird, like it is rupturing around the edges. “Let all the children come forward. Have faith and do not be afraid.”
Little by little, kids of all ages step away from their parents, some by themselves, others holding their brothers’ or sisters’ hands. At the front of the pack is Iris Murphy, standing alone, her little arms folded across her chest.
I glance over at Benny, who is still sitting close to Mom. Then I see Dad, who is staring at me in a way I’ve never seen him stare at anything before. It’s even worse than the stare in the car, like actual heat is radiating out from behind his eyes, pulsing in waves throughout the air between us.
I lean down nervously toward Benny. “I think we have to go, Benny. Come on. It’ll be okay. I’ll stay right next to you the whole time.” Mom glances worriedly at me as she helps Benny off the bench. I take his hand in mine and lead him toward the group of children, pretending not to feel Dad’s white-hot gaze in the middle of my back.
“Remember, children!” Emmanuel’s voice echoes in my ears. “Remember we are Believers.”
The two policemen lead the sixty or so children, including Benny and me, into a side room near the front of the Great House. I don’t recognize the room, since I have never been in it before. It is sparsely furnished, with a wooden desk on one side, a single bed on another, and a white, knotted throw rug in the middle. A large cross hangs above the bed.
“Sit anywhere,” the chubby policeman says, surveying the lot of us. “Get comfortable. We’re just going to talk.”
Iris Murphy and a few other little girls scramble on top of the bed. Amanda Woodward settles herself down in the desk chair. Peter stands against the wall, his arms crossed against his chest. The rest of us sit cross-legged on the floor. No one speaks.
“Okay, then,” the tall policeman says. He is standing in front of the room, his legs askance. For some reason, he looks familiar. A small silver bar pinned to the breast pocket of his navy shirt reads CAPTAIN MARANTINO. Could this be the same police officer who came a few years ago? “We just want to ask you guys some questions, okay?” Silence. He clears his throat. “How many of you have ever heard of something called the Regulation Room?”
Benny buries his face in the side of my arm at the mention of the room, but no one else moves. Not a hand raised, not a word spoken. I look over at Iris. She is picking a scab on the front of her knee. Peter has turned his head in the opposite direction.
“No one here has ever been inside something called the Regulation Room?” the policeman presses. “Not even once?” Silence. He shoots a sidelong glance at the other policeman, who raises his eyebrows, rocks back on his heels, and then clears his throat.
“Okay, why don’t we start from the beginning? How many of you like living here?”
A small forest of hands rises up from the group of us.
Captain Marantino nods approvingly. “Anybody not like living here?”
Iris’s hand shoots up.
Captain Marantino pounces. “And what’s your name?” he asks.
But Iris bows her head, absorbed once again with the scab on her knee.
“Sweetheart?” he asks again. “Can you tell me your name?”
Iris shakes her head.
“Why not?” the chubby policeman barges in. “Are you scared of something?” Silence. I know exactly what Iris is scared of. “You know, we can help you if someone here is hurting you,” the policeman pushes. “We can make it stop. We can make sure it never happens again.”
All I have to do is stand up. Take out the Polaroids in my back pocket. My neck feels tight. What should I do? I look at the crucifix on the wall—will it tell me anything? Will I get a sign, a hint of some sort? The blue uniform in front of the room is starting to blur. My nose begins to wiggle as I think about the preacher in the church in Greenville.
All we have to do is ask. Lord, here I am. Show me the way.
Was it any safer out there? With the red and orange foods and the awful songs on the radio and the vanity-promoting hair products? All temptations to sin, to blacken the soul, permanently erase any chances of ever becoming a saint. But what about the word on Honey’s bruised back, the belt marks on mine? What does it mean that Honey is my first cousin—and I have never known it until only a few moments ago? And why, if the world is so evil, as Emmanuel is constantly telling us, did it provide me in the past few days with the first sure footings of safety, something I have never felt—not once—in all my years at Mount Blessing? How else to explain the strange happiness I felt after leaving that church service, or the terrible security I felt locked in Lillian’s bathroom? How could a world so evil have such a beautiful statue of the Blessed Virgin in the mountain? Or let people cry and shout out in church?
A tug on my shirt tears me away from my swirling thoughts. Benny is staring up at me. “Tell them, Agnes,” he says.
I look at him dumbly, shocked at the sound of his voice after all this time. “Benny,” I whisper.
He pushes himself closer against my arm. “Please.” His voice, soft and urgent, throbs in my ears. “Please tell them.”
The Lord knows, the woman in that church had said, we have things inside we can’t keep quiet about … Sometimes, the longer the silence, the louder the shout.
The story of Saint Agnes races through my head for maybe the hundredth time. She was just about my age when she stood up in front of the emperor of Rome and told him that she would not believe in his pagan gods. I have always, I realize suddenly, imagined myself doing the same thing, for God, and for Emmanuel, who in some inextricable way, have become the same thing. It has never occurred to me until this very moment that perhaps they are separate, that maybe the God I want to stand up for is not the one Emmanuel represents. Maybe Emmanuel is the pagan god. Would the real God send children to hell if we messed up on that road he keeps asking us to travel? Would the real God have a Regulation Room?
Have you ever tried to trust yourself to do the right thing? Instead of always waiting for some sign or trying to figure out what Emmanuel thinks is right for you?
My sign is right in front of me. All I have to do is open my eyes.
Slowly, on trembling legs, I stand up.
HONEY
After making sure that Nana Pete is safe at the Jackson & Sons Funeral Home, Lillian and I get into the Queen Mary and drive all night and most of the next day to get back to Mount Blessing. It takes me a while to convince her to let me get behind the wheel, but her exhaustion from working all night at King’s finally takes over and she gives in—especially when I remind
her Nana Pete let me drive on the way down. She sleeps soundly in the front seat, her head slumped down against her chest.
For a while I’m pissed that she’s sleeping. I mean, I haven’t seen the woman in fourteen years and now that we’re alone in the car together with a fourteen-hour trip ahead of us, she conks out? But when I calm down, I realize that I’m actually kind of glad she’s asleep. I mean, I don’t even know where to start to feel when it comes to the fact that I am actually sitting next to her. Shock and happiness and rage and fury are all balled up into this gigantic … thing inside my chest. Mostly it just feels unreal. I keep looking over, as if maybe she is simply a mirage and when I get close enough, she will vanish into thin air. But she doesn’t. For hours, little whistling sounds blow in and out of her nose, and her hands lie limp as sleeping kittens in her lap. Every time a car passes, its headlights flood her profile with a brief, sweeping light, making her hair look like an electric halo around her face.
I wonder if I will ever feel any love for her—now, or later, after some time passes. But I guess I shouldn’t worry about that. The real question is if I am ever going to trust her after everything that has happened. Mr. and Mrs. Little did a horrible thing, keeping the truth about my mother from me all these years—but then, so did Lillian. Her explanation for it made sense, and a part of me feels bad for her, having to go through all that rejection from her own brother and then Emmanuel. But I was her baby. I am her baby. And I should have come first. Before either of them. How do we get past the fact that I didn’t? That she listened to two men who told her she wasn’t good enough instead of her own heart? And then, just as I’m starting to feel really lousy about the whole deal, I remember one of the last things Nana Pete said to Agnes and me:
We’ve got to stay on the same team if we want to make it, okay?
Maybe all I’ve got to do, at least for now, is just try to stay on the same team. Slowly, I reach out and slide my hand inside Lillian’s. It is warm and soft.
As we pass Raleigh, I try to quell the anxiousness rising inside. Have things already been put into motion at Mount Blessing? Could Winky have possibly come through for me? Or have Agnes and Benny been snatched from Mr. and Mrs. Little upon their return and sent to Emmanuel’s room? I get a shooting pain in the front of my head when I think of the latter. Emmanuel will destroy Agnes completely if he gets his claws into her one last time. And there’s no telling what will become of Benny. I glance in the rearview mirror at the empty highway behind me and step down hard on the gas.
Lillian wakes up just outside of Baltimore as the sun is coming up. She rubs her eyes and stretches and then looks over at me. I turn the radio, which I have been listening to for the past six hours, down low.
“God, how long have I been asleep?” she asks.
“Five hours. Give or take.”
“Five hours?” she repeats. “Are you okay? Why didn’t you wake me?”
I shrug. “I’m fine. I’m a pretty good driver.”
Lillian rubs her eyes again. “I guess you are. Geez, Louise! I can’t believe you drove all that way without stopping!” She peers out the window. “And you know where you are?”
“I’ve just been following signs for 95 North,” I say.
Lillian shakes her head. “Amazing.”
“You hungry?” I ask.
Lillian rolls her eyes and pats her belly.
“Yeah. But I’m always hungry. Always. Ma used to say I had a tapeworm in my belly.” I smile when she says that. “Pull over at that Burger King,” Lillian says, pointing to a sign. “We’ll get something to eat and I’ll drive the rest of the way.”
We order the works at the Burger King drive-through: French Toast Sticks, two Croissan’wiches with eggs and ham, Cheesy Tots, hash browns, a large coffee for Lillian, and two orange juices for me. Lillian eats with one hand, steering the car with the other, and takes big bites without pausing for breath. She slurps her coffee, even though it is scalding hot, and sighs after the first sip.
“I miss Ma already,” she says in a quavering voice. I stare out the window at a green sign that says WASHINGTON, D.C. 25 MILES. In a little while, we will be back at Mount Blessing, hopefully to get Agnes and Benny out of there for good. But going back there without Nana Pete suddenly feels ominous, like going into battle without any armor.
“I still can’t believe she’s gone,” I say.
“How was she on the trip?” Lillian asks, taking another gulp of coffee.
“What do you mean?”
“The only road trip I ever took with her was just that short drive from Raleigh down to Atlanta. You got her for two whole days on the road. What was it like? Did she drive fast? Did she stop a lot? Did she tell you stories?”
I tell Lillian everything, starting at the very beginning with Nana Pete throwing us all into the Queen Mary and tearing out of Mount Blessing as if our shoes were on fire. Then the McDonald’s and Wal-Mart stops, the motel, me driving, her exhaustion, the discussions about God, Agnes’s waist string, and the pink barrette. To my surprise, I wind up talking for over an hour. My voice is raspy when I finish, but for some reason, I feel exhilarated. It is the first time since everything began that I realize I feel different. Older, maybe. Quieter.
“She was something,” Lillian says softly. “Wasn’t she?”
“Yeah,” I answer. “She really was.”
Five hours later, Lillian pulls on to Sanctity Road. She sits forward, practically on top of the steering wheel, and drives slowly. Tiny beads of sweat have broken out on her forehead. “God,” she says, surveying the empty landscape. “This is when I wish I still smoked.”
“You used to smoke?” I ask, glancing out the window as the Field House looms into view. There is no one in sight.
“Oh yeah,” Lillian answers. “Lots. Ma made me quit last year, after we started spending time together again.”
I press myself flat against the side window, straining to see the Milk House, which is next in line. There is no sign of anyone inside. I hold my breath as the car passes the house, waiting for the butterfly garden to appear. It’s empty. Where is everyone?
“Cops,” Lillian says as we make the turn toward the Great House. “Lots of them.”
I count five police cars—blue and white with FAIRFIELD POLICE DEPARTMENT in gold on the sides—parked in front. We are about ten yards from the Great Door when a policewoman steps out from one of the cars. She strides toward us, waving us aside. Lillian rolls down her window.
The woman peers in at both of us. A large mole sits on her cheek like a bug. “You two live here?” she asks.
“No,” Lillian answers. “We don’t.”
The policewoman frowns. “Well, you’re not allowed here, then. This is private property.”
I lean forward. “Why are the police here?”
“We’re conducting an investigation,” the woman says vaguely. “But I’m not at liberty to—”
“You are?” I yell. Getting out of the car, I slam the door and run around to where she is standing. “Did someone call you guys to come investigate what’s been going on with Emmanuel?”
The woman’s mouth contorts into a grimace. “Like I said, I’m not at liberty to discuss the details. And I’m afraid you’re going to have to … ”
Lillian gets out of the car. She is a good foot shorter than the policewoman, but she looks her straight in the eye. “We have family here, ma’am. Children. And we need to know what’s happening to them.”
Behind the policewoman, I catch a glimpse of the Great Door opening. My knees go weak when Winky emerges from behind it. He grins when he sees me and holds out his hand. I run to him, clutching his fingers ferociously and let him pull me into him. He smells like the garden. I am breathing hard, trying not to cry and laugh at the same time. “Winky,” I whisper.
He pulls a rough hand down over my braids. “They’re all in there,” he says hoarsely. “Still getting interviewed or something. Been going on for hours. They’re done with me
, I think.”
“Agnes and Benny, too?” I ask.
Winky nods. “She looks different.”
I take a step backward. “Who does?”
“Agnes.”
“Different how?”
He shrugs. “Bruised a little. Not so perfect anymore.” I hug him again tightly. “Who you with?” he asks softly, nodding toward Lillian. I lead him over to the car, where Lillian is biting her nails and stepping down hard on her other shoe.
“This is Lillian Little,” I say. “My mother.”
Winky nods slowly. He sticks his hand out and shakes Lillian’s gnawed fingers.
“I remember you. Sorta.” Lillian swallows hard. Her bottom lip is quavering. “Thank you for being so good to Honey,” she finally whispers. “It means the world to me.”
Winky smiles.
“Hey, Winky,” I say. “Guess what?”
“I can’t guess,” he says. “After all them questions, my head hurts.”
I laugh. “I saw my first Zebra Longwing! Down in Savannah, where Lillian lives. It was beautiful!”
“Yeah?” Winky asks. “Male or female?”
“Female. With great big stripes up and down her wings, just like in the book.”
“I’m glad,” Winky says, pushing a piece of hair out of my face. “God, I’m glad for you, Honey.”
The Great Door groans once more.
“Agnes,” Lillian whispers. I step out from behind Winky. Benny is with Agnes, clutching her hand. They both look frightened and exhausted. I take a small step in their direction.
“Ags,” I whisper. She raises her face. Her eyes are tired, but blue and fair as a summer day.
“I told the truth,” she says. “I had to.”
The Patron Saint of Butterflies Page 23
