The night air was thick, sticking in Quinn’s throat like a wrong answer. The moon was full, which lit her path to the butterfly garden. She felt an inexplicable sense of dread warring with her excitement, as though she had become the flag at the center of a rope, with her family on one end and the other realm on the other. The closer Quinn got to the butterfly garden, the more at peace she felt. If this were a game, she thought, the butterfly garden would be the taped off square in the middle, the point of perfect balance between this life and the other realm. The thought relaxed Quinn’s shoulders and Quinn sensed that a riddle had just become clear. Riley is the flag, not me. I’m the rope, the only thing connecting Riley to the other realm. Or was she? Quinn recalled a field day in fifth grade when the tug-of-war had been called a draw after she and her friends had pulled the rope until it split in two. Her face mimicked the shadows at the edge of the garden, and she wondered how long before she broke herself.
Once at the pond, Quinn zipped her jacket, took a deep breath, and jumped feetfirst into the water. This time she crossed her arms over chest in an X with each hand gripping the opposite shoulder. That was how she had learned to enter the water without making a splash. In this instance, Quinn discovered, she moved between the realms much faster. She also hit the cracked ground harder, knocking the wind from her chest. She gasped for air without thinking, causing her to choke and cough uncontrollably. Thankfully Quinn had stuffed a bottle of water into her jacket pocket. She took a long gulp, then closed her eyes and tried to slow her heart. This time, her breaths were deliberately shallow, allowing her to fill her lungs without drawing too much of the atmosphere into her mouth or nose.
The moons were beginning to rise. Quinn knew that navigating the other realm would be difficult in the dim night. She looked around, getting her bearings. She saw small pulses of red and yellow at the edge of the horizon. Hoping that the light was from fires inside the cave, Quinn started toward them. Riding with Meelie on the giant chicken had been swift, if a little unbelievable, but she struggled to cross the desert on foot. Her heart started to race as she realized that she wouldn’t get to the cave before the night overtook her. She was dizzy. Her chest burned, and her legs were heavy. Even her eyes had begun to water. Just as Quinn started to panic, a stream of indigo butterflies swarmed around her. The light from their wings was mesmerizing. Unable to think or see clearly, Quinn wandered with the insects as if she were bobbing in a stream. Some of the butterflies landed on her arms and shoulders, while others flitted a few inches in front of her face.
She tried to focus on their wings, but she couldn’t keep her eyes open. She stumbled, bracing herself for another hard landing, but none came. Instead, her stomach lurched like when she rode roller coasters. Quinn stretched out her hands, searching for the ground, but she felt only air. She couldn’t get any footing, either. Her body leaned forward, somehow frozen midfall, but Quinn was sure that she was still moving forward. She forced her eyes open and saw that she was ten or twenty feet off the ground. She was, in fact, bobbing in a fantastic river of butterflies. As they carried her along, Quinn succumbed to exhaustion. When she woke, she found herself at the mouth of the cave.
Everyone inside was asleep, so Quinn picked her way through the people as quietly as she could, straining to make out their faces as she passed. She noticed a group of children huddled together in a far corner. Strangely, they were the only ones in the cavern who hadn’t gathered around a fire. Next to them, Quinn saw Meelie’s hen. A little farther off, Meelie slept beside a small patch of burning wood. Each time the bark popped, the youngest girl in the huddle of children jumped and buried her face in the oldest girl’s back.
Meelie didn’t seem to notice Quinn, who was still trying not to wake anyone as she approached. When she passed Pidge, though, the hen turned and gave a loud squawk. This roused two of the children, who turned and smiled groggily at Quinn. She waved at them, and they beckoned her over. She tiptoed toward them before kneeling down to introduce herself.
“I’m Betty,” the younger girl, who Quinn guessed was about five years old, responded. “That’s Martha,” she continued, pointing to the other girl, “my older sister.”
“Oh, wow. So you—did you both—”
“Die? Heavens, no. Though folks sure tried to tell mama and papa that for some time,” Martha answered.
“We come through when someone set our house on fire,” Betty jumped in.
“How many of you are there?” Quinn asked.
“Five of us here, five back home. ’Course we don’t hear much about ’em, so I can’t say if they’re still alive.”
Martha looked a few years younger than Quinn, but she recognized the anguish in Martha’s voice, the sort of grief that makes a home in the body.
“How long have you been here?” Quinn asked. Remembering her first conversation with Meelie, she told them what year it was.
“Well, I’ll be. I suppose this is our seventieth anniversary then.”
“You’ve been here for seventy years? All five of you?”
Betty nodded. Martha looked like she was near tears. She pinched the bridge of her nose and straightened up. “Well enough about us. How did you come through?”
Quinn told them about the letters and the butterfly house and how Meelie had come across her in the desert her first time in the other realm.
“First time? You mean, you’ve been through more than once?” Betty’s eyes sparkled with curiosity. She moved closer to Quinn, staring at her the way Quinn sometimes stared at her math homework.
“Yes,” Quinn responded with hesitation.
“I wish I could go home even for a minute, just to say goodbye to mama and the others.”
“Couldn’t you? I thought everyone had a choice here?”
“Oh, no. The other realm doesn’t work the same way for everyone. Most folks come through water, but we come through fire. When we tried to go back like folks said, we couldn’t find a portal anywhere. We’re the only ones in this place who can touch the bottom, so to speak.” Martha clasped her hands together and looked away, shutting her eyes tight. “Meelie and the other refugees, they’ve got a kinship with water. They feel connected to their previous life, like water is a channel between the world they knew and the world they chose. That’s what they say, anyway. But we aren’t foolish enough to go jumping into a bonfire just to see what’s on the other end. Lord knows what might happen.”
“I heard one of the missing say that she could watch the surface of a pond like a television, only everything she saw was from her family back home. Don’t work for us, though. We can’t go back.”
“Did Meelie take you to see Aimee?” Quinn asked.
“Oh, sure. She thinks we can’t return, because we died in the fire. She thinks that bodies can die in one place or the other, but that death severs any connection between the two worlds.”
The whole time Martha spoke, she stared at the teleidoscope around Quinn’s neck. Quinn shifted her weight several times, uncomfortable with Martha’s gaze and anxious to move on to her friend. She didn’t want to be rude, but she had come back to the other realm with a purpose. As soon as Betty yawned, Quinn rose and excused herself, thanking the girls for being so welcoming, before creeping past Pidge.
“Meelie,” Quinn whispered.
“Man alive,” Meelie said, her shoulders tensing, “you can’t go sneaking up on an old woman like that, Quinn. Almost gave me a heart attack.”
The phrase sounded odd coming from someone her mother’s age. Quinn realized how entrenched her concept of time was. Meelie looked young, but she had lived more than a century. That was bound to have some effect on the body, she supposed.
“Sorry. I was trying not to wake anyone.”
“What are you doing here anyway? I thought for sure you’d gone back for good.”
“Funny you ask—”
“Is your sister okay?” Meelie interrupted. “You figure out what that flower you found was all about?”
&
nbsp; “Sort of. I’m still not sure how, exactly, but I put the bulb next to her while she was sleeping, and the doctors haven’t found anything wrong with her since.”
“Then you shouldn’t be here. Didn’t Aimee tell you not to come back?”
Quinn was taken aback by Meelie’s harsh tone. “Well, I mean—I guess so, yeah. She said I should either stay with Riley or come straight back here.”
“And you didn’t come straight back, did you?”
“No—” Quinn trailed off.
“Hells bells, Quinn!”
“I just—I’m doing a school project, and I wanted to talk to you about some the details.”
“You’re here for a school project?” Meelie looked genuinely baffled.
“Well, no. Not just that.”
“Then what? Your family will notice you’re gone this time. Hell, they’re probably worried sick already. What’s so important that you had to come back?”
“Wait, what do you mean my family knows I’m gone? What about time moving in a circle and all that?”
“That’s only true for first-timers. Good grief. What did you and Aimee talk about out there on that boat? I thought she told you all this?”
Quinn thought back to the conversation.
“I may have—” Quinn sighed. “I cut her off. She was talking about how I should leave Riley and my mom without saying goodbye and I just got upset so I told her I didn’t want—”
“Woah, woah. Slow down. Take a breath,” Meelie broke in.
Quinn was in tears now. “Is that why my mom keeps forgetting things and why Riley doesn’t want my help anymore?”
“All I know is that moving back and forth between this life and the other doesn’t end well, at least not as far as I’ve seen.”
“Is that why you never went back when your plane crashed?”
Meelie’s jaw twitched in the firelight. “Doing that research, I see.”
“Not really. At least, not on purpose.” Quinn chose her words carefully. “My teacher, she assigned all of us someone from history, and I got your name and—” Quinn stared at the fire. “Meelie, you said you didn’t have a reason to go back, but you had a younger sister just like I do.”
Meelie looked at Quinn with glassy eyes, the red flames flicking inside them. “I suppose what I meant is that I had a better reason to stay.” She tossed a small log into the fire. “At least I thought I did.”
Quinn scooted closer to Meelie and leaned on her shoulder. “So you haven’t seen your sister since you disap—since you got here?”
“No.” Meelie’s voice was soft, but distant. “Not for lack of trying on her part, I’ll say that. She and my husband sure turned the world upside down trying to find me and my plane, or so I hear.”
Quinn was overcome by a sudden wave of fear. If Meelie hadn’t gone home, how could she? Quinn wasn’t half as brave or wise as Meelie—she couldn’t even drive. How was she supposed to handle what one of the greatest pilots in history couldn’t face?
“Is—is going home that bad?” Her voice shook.
“I told you, Quinn, I don’t know anything about that except what I’m told,” Meelie snapped. “And if folks are right, you shouldn’t have come back. You shouldn’t be here at all.”
Then Meelie did something that Quinn hadn’t expected: she kicked sand over the fire, donned her pilot’s cap, yanked on the reins of her hen, and stormed out of the cave.
Despite the children sleeping nearby, who seemed unbothered by the heated exchange, Quinn felt completely alone. Coming back had been a mistake. This place wasn’t a second home. The other realm wasn’t any kind of home. Angry with herself, Quinn stood up and walked to the mouth of the cave. The moons were starting to descend, creating a wonderful gradient of reds and purples in the sky.
Quinn looked out at the desert, debating whether or not to strike out now or wait until morning. Behind her, someone stirred. Quinn shuffled out into the dawn, ducking to the right in case whoever had moved was watching the cave entrance. Meelie’s reaction had made Quinn anxious to get home, but her curiosity was, unsurprisingly, winning the internal debate, which drew her away from the cave, away from the pond that would take her back. Quinn wasn’t sure how many days she would have to walk to get to the ocean, but she would have to find Aimee if she had any hope of understanding what had happened with Meelie or what to expect when she returned to Riley and her mother.
Chapter Sixteen
“Quinn, Riley—let’s go!” Jane shouted.
She was already running late, and she hadn’t seen or heard either of the girls all morning. She checked the clock in the kitchen to see if the power had gone out, but the time matched that on her watch. Frustrated, she walked to their bedroom door and knocked loudly.
“Girls, get a move on!”
Riley opened the door still in her pajamas.
“Why so early?” she murmured, wiping sleep from her eyes.
“You’re not even dressed yet? What have you been doing all morning?”
“I just woke up.”
“Why didn’t you get up when your alarm went off?”
“My alarm didn’t go off.”
“And Quinn didn’t tell you to get ready for school?”
“No. I think she’s still asleep.”
“Quinn! Let’s go. I don’t have time for this!” Jane said, moving past Riley into the bedroom. She flicked on the light and saw Quinn’s empty bed, the covers and sheets still tucked in from the morning before. Teetering between panic and anger, she turned to Riley.
“Where is your sister?”
“I don’t know,” Riley shrugged. “She told me a story, then I went to sleep.”
“Okay, baby. Go brush your teeth. I’ll set out some clothes for you.” Jane tried to control the worry in her voice.
Once Riley had left the doorway, she pulled clothes from the dresser and set them on Riley’s bed. She remembered Quinn’s odd behavior the night before and instinctively checked the coat closet. Sure enough, the jacket that Quinn had hung up was gone. Quinn had clearly planned to sneak out.
Jane wanted to be angry, but Quinn typically didn’t lie or sneak out at night, and Jane was more worried than irritated. Where had Quinn been going so late at night, and why hadn’t she been honest with Jane? Why hadn’t she come home? Was she hurt? The questions tumbled over almost as quickly as her heart pounded. She would have to call in to work and tell them that Quinn was missing. And the police. Jane wondered if they would even look for Quinn. She hadn’t been gone for very long; in fact, Jane realized, they may not consider Quinn missing at all. Taking her jacket meant that Quinn left of her own will. Would the police call her a runaway? The thought terrified Jane. She knew better than to think that Quinn really had run away—wherever Quinn was, she wouldn’t leave Riley for very long—but the police would have to investigate. They would have to talk to Riley. And maybe Child Services. As alarmed as Jane was, she decided to tell her boss that Riley was having one of her bad days, and she would try to find Quinn herself before contacting the authorities.
* * *
Jane pulled into the drop-off lane at Riley’s school faster than she should have. She tried not to make eye contact with the crossing guard, who was clearly peeved.
“Have a good day, sweetie,” Jane said, flashing a smile. She hoped that Riley couldn’t hear the fear in her voice.
“Is Quinn going to walk me home?”
“How about I pick you up today, and we can all go for frozen yogurt?” Jane didn’t know if she would be able to find Quinn before Riley’s school let out, and she didn’t want Riley waiting if Quinn didn’t show.
“Okay.”
“Everything all right, baby?”
“Yeah. Just tired, I guess.”
“Maybe you slept too long.”
“Maybe,” Riley shrugged.
Jane had noticed Riley dragging that morning, and Riley hadn’t touched her breakfast. Neither observation was particularly noteworthy, except that R
iley had been a ball of energy and a virtually bottomless pit for the past couple months. Riley’s sudden reversion worried Jane. I knew I couldn’t trust her recovery, she thought. She watched Riley walk into the school, her small feet barely lifting off the ground as she trudged through the doors. The other shoe always falls.
* * *
Jane was running through last night’s conversation with Quinn as she pulled away from Riley’s school. She would have to call Quinn’s school and tell them that Quinn was sick. Otherwise the truancy officers would be notified, and Jane would have to admit that she didn’t know where her daughter was. She dialed the school’s phone number, steering her car toward home. Perhaps Quinn had already returned, Jane hoped. Of course, Quinn would have hell to pay either way. What was she thinking disappearing in the middle of the night like that? Jane was having a difficult time suppressing her worry. The more she thought about Quinn, the more convinced she became that Quinn would not have deliberately left Riley to get herself ready. She was a teenager, so a certain amount of rebellion was expected, but Quinn watched over Riley like a mother hen.
Jane pulled into her driveway and hurried into the house, but every room was dark. The house was eerily quiet. Butterfly hadn’t barked, or even come to greet her at the door. He wasn’t a particularly rambunctious dog, but he made a habit of racing to the door at the slightest squeak of the hinge.
“Butterfly,” Jane called.
When he didn’t come, she went into the kitchen for a pouch of treats. She unzipped the pouch as loudly as she could. “Who wants a treat?”
That must have roused Butterfly. Jane could hear his nails clicking on the hardwood as he barreled into the kitchen. For all his gentleness, Butterfly forgot his size where food was involved. Jane bent down and stroked his head while he chomped on the treats she had scattered for him.
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