The Glass Butterfly

by Louise Marley

  31

  E come sarà giunto, che dirà?

  And when he has arrived, what will he say?

  —Butterfly, Madama Butterfly, Act Two

  Tory paced the floor in the cottage, with Johnson watching her uneasily. She had called Zoe to tell her she had an emergency to deal with. Hank had promised to come as soon as he completed the couple of appointments he had scheduled for the morning. The clinic was closing at noon for the holiday. The fog had thickened, fresh clouds of it rolling in from the sea, isolating the cottage in folds of mist. Tory tried Jack’s phone again and again, with no result, until at last she forced herself to stop. She tried not to think of what might be happening in Vermont, the sheriff’s office buzzing over Hank’s phone call, Kate and Chet upset, Ellice aware and alert that something had happened.

  She tried, especially, not to imagine terrible things happening to Jack, but in this she failed utterly. She pictured a car accident, or a robbery, or a kidnapping. She imagined him lost somewhere, and tried to tell herself he could really be with the family of one of his friends. The thing she feared most—Ellice Gordon and her gun—she closed away from her mind, but the idea of it lurked there just the same, like a child’s imagined monster awaiting its opportunity to pounce.

  On one of her circuits of the cottage, she picked up Nonna Angela’s paperweight, holding it in her palm, taking comfort in the familiar smoothness. She stopped by the window to gaze out into the fog, but she could see nothing. Her heart sped until she thought she could hear every beat. To drown it out, she clicked on the CD player. The opening bars of the overture to Madama Butterfly sounded, masking the thudding of her pulse.

  The file folder—Ellice Gordon’s file folder—lay on the cracked Formica table. They had made photocopies in Hank’s clinic, on the machine behind Shirley’s counter. They had already mailed a set to the sheriff’s office. She had the receipt in her pocket.

  She tried Jack’s phone again. She couldn’t help it. She must have dialed it a dozen times already, but she dialed it again, punching the numbers instead of using the redial, as if the extra effort might make a difference.

  “Hey! Leave a message!”

  Oh, Jack, sweetheart. Where are you?

  The time on her cell phone said eleven-thirty. Hank wouldn’t be here for at least another hour. Now, after all these ponderous weeks, she could hardly bear the slowness of passing time.

  She turned the music up louder, and stood leaning against the wall beside the window, butterfly paperweight in her hand. Johnson, ears twitching nervously, rose and came to her. He pressed his nose against her thigh, and she crouched down to put her free arm around his neck. She murmured into his fur, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” but she knew very well it wasn’t the dog she was apologizing to.

  As Jack coasted to a stop at the end of the exit to Cannon Beach, a billow of fog rolled over the road, obscuring the street signs and the buildings. His shoulders ached with tension. He wouldn’t be able to see the beige sedan if it found him again. He could barely see the road ahead of him, only headlights and taillights warning him where other cars were. Through the murk, holiday lights gleamed red and green, and lighted Christmas trees sparkled here and there in a front window or a fog-shrouded garden. He drove slowly over a small bridge and down into the town, looking for somewhere he could park, perhaps someplace safe to ask for—ask for what? What could he say? I’m looking for my mother. . . . It was impossible.

  But his intuition was still with him. His fey, just like his mother’s. He drove tentatively on through the fog, following what seemed to be the main street of the town, past a market, a flower shop, a few boutiques, all open for last-minute Christmas shopping. He kept on, into a residential area where streets and lanes led into foggy neighborhoods, and hoped he would know.

  When he felt the impulse, he pulled the Escalade out of the main road and into a side street. Warily, feeling hyper-alert, he turned off the engine, and turned off the headlights as well.

  Before he could decide whether this was a good place to get out, the beige sedan rolled past him. Its lights were off, too, and through the mist he could just make out the profile of Ellice Gordon. He knew that strong jaw, the beak of her nose. She was turning her head back and forth, searching.

  How had she found him? It made no sense. Surely with the fog . . .

  He glanced down at his cell phone, glowing now in the charger. Cell phones had GPS, didn’t they? It had never occurred to him to disable it, nor would he have known how to do it if he had thought of it.

  It was too late to undo that now. Jack pressed himself back against the headrest until the sedan swept by and was swallowed up in the fog. He waited another minute, two, to be certain she didn’t come back. Then, cautiously, he opened the car door and climbed out. He left the cell phone where it was, eager now to get away from it.

  He turned down the nearest street, heading toward the ocean at a jog. He buttoned up his coat as he went, and turned his collar up against the damp. His neck prickled, making him glance over his shoulder. He stopped abruptly, his heart lurching. The beige sedan had come back, had turned into his side street. It was rolling to a stop opposite the Escalade.

  She had found him after all. Adrenaline jolted through Jack’s veins.

  He whirled to his left, and dashed up the nearest alley. He dodged garbage cans and stacks of lawn furniture. He jumped a low wire fence, cutting across someone’s dried-out grass, and made for the beach. He couldn’t see the ocean through the shifting fog, but he could hear the crash of the waves and the deep call of the surf up ahead.

  He ran, his sneakers digging into the wet sand. Mist collected on his eyelashes, droplets rolling back into his hairline. To his right, above a low ridge of dunes, lights glowed softly through the fog. To his left, an edge of foam marked the surf line. Up ahead, dim at first through the fog, then looming large and dark, was a giant rock, its feet washed by the surf, its craggy shoulders shrouded by mist. Jack raced toward it, driven by the sure conviction that Ellice would be coming after him.

  There was something uncanny in her ability to follow him, something that defied logic, that had nothing to do with technology. It was as if she was connected to him in some obscure and indefinable way. Ever since the first time he saw her, on the steps of Our Lady of the Forests, and every time he had encountered her since, what had happened between them had felt inevitable. Inescapable. It was weird, and he hoped he would be able to think it through one day. The only thing he knew for sure was that he had been right. Ellice was up to her neck in all of this—whatever it was.

  He ran toward the big black rock, and circled around to the north side of it where he stopped, hands on knees, to catch his breath. The air was thick and chilly in his lungs, and the sound of the ocean filled his ears.

  He straightened, and peered around the dim beach. He couldn’t see more than twenty yards in any direction. His sneakers were heavy with wet sand, and the wind from the ocean chilled his wet cheeks and sent rivulets of moisture running down his neck. He backed up as far as he could without stepping in the foam-edged surf, so the rock’s bulk sheltered him from the worst of the wind. He thrust his hands in his jacket pockets and bent his head, listening for the sounds of footsteps.

  What he heard instead made him pull his hands free and lean forward, cupping his left ear with one palm.

  Music. He heard music drifting down the beach.

  Specifically, he heard an opera.

  Jack’s lips parted as he strained his ears to hear. Puccini, he was sure of it. The second act of Butterfly.

  Tory’s favorite.

  He abandoned the cover of the great rock and dashed across the beach, up toward the dunes and the dirt lane that ran behind them. His skull throbbed, tugging him, guiding him. She was here! There was no time to doubt his fey. None of it made any sense, anyway, but it didn’t matter now. He only had to follow the music, Tory’s signature music, and his long journey would be at an end.

  She
was here. She had to be here, or all of it was for nothing.

  Tory set the paperweight on the coffee table before she opened the door to let Johnson out into the yard. Gray drifts swirled over the gate and haloed the Christmas lights in her neighbors’ windows. The dog sniffed for a moment, nosing the brown grass and the thin shreds of snow at the bases of the fence posts. The soaring melodies of Butterfly rolled out through the open door. She supposed the neighbors wouldn’t like it much—it was hardly Christmas music—but just now she didn’t care. Her nerves were stretched to the breaking point. It was as if all the fear she had suppressed for so many weeks had suddenly broken through, making her heart pound and her throat ache with tension.

  She had done it. She had done what she needed to do, with Hank’s help. The sheriff would have Ellice’s file the day after Christmas, and that would be a great relief. She had set things right.

  But if Jack weren’t safe, if he were harmed in any way, she couldn’t imagine she would ever feel joy again.

  Johnson barked, a deep, harsh sound that made Tory jump. She had never heard him do that before. It sounded like an alarm. A warning.

  She squinted, trying to see through the fog. A shape was approaching, a tall, broad-shouldered figure. Tory stiffened. “Johnson! Come here!” she whispered, beneath the swell of the music.

  The dog didn’t move. He faced the beach, his expressive tail straight out behind him, his head high and his ears pricked forward.

  The shape came closer, so Tory could make out a shock of blond hair, a dark jacket. Whoever it was paused, peering through the fog, finding the lane, taking tentative steps up it.

  Tory gasped, and dashed across the yard to the gate, leaving the door of the cottage standing open behind her. Her heart thudded in her throat, stealing her voice. “Jack!” she choked. She threw the gate open, swallowed, and called again. “Jack, here! I can hardly—oh, Jack, my god! What are you doing—Sweetheart, I’m here! Right here!”

  He lifted his head, a smile beginning on his face, and he started to trot toward her.

  She could hardly breathe, watching him come. He was bigger, surely, and he looked older than she remembered. His fair hair shone through the fog, and even at a distance she recognized the brilliant blue of his eyes, wide now in his pale face, glimmering with surprised tears.

  He cried, “Mom!” His voice cracked and broke like a boy’s as he dashed across the lane toward her. “Mom, it’s really you! God, I—”

  “Jack! What are you doing here? How did you—Are you okay?”

  Their words tumbled over each other as she reached the gate and opened it. He looked so familiar it hurt, the fronds of hair falling over his forehead, his smile broadening as he saw her, the smooth strength of his stride. The suddenness of it all, the overwhelming relief of seeing him well and whole, weakened her knees, and made tears of relief start in her eyes, too. He had almost reached her, his arms lifting to meet her own outstretched ones.

  He said, with a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob, “Jeez, Mom, what did you do to your hair?”

  “I—”

  She never finished her answer. She didn’t have the chance to fold him in her arms as she had longed to do. Even as she was about to touch him, about to hold the reality of her son close to her, another figure emerged from the mist.

  It was a nightmare come true. Ellice Gordon, tall, dangerous, vicious, appeared behind Jack. It was what Tory had dreaded for weeks. The reality was terrifying.

  But this time she would not flee. She would not cower, nor would she hide.

  The weakness left her knees. Her spine stiffened and she set her shoulders. She dropped her arms, stood aside, and said, “Jack. Go inside.” She pointed behind her, through the gate to the open door of the cottage.

  Johnson began to growl, a low, chilling sound. His nape bristled, and he contrived somehow to look larger than he usually did, taller, broader, fiercer. His lip curled, but not with his usual smile. It lifted to show his long white canines, and he went on growling, a rumble deep in his chest.

  Jack twisted his head to look behind him, and when he saw the enemy he, too, turned to face her. He took only a single step backward, enough to carry him through the gate. The two of them, Tory and Jack, stood shoulder to shoulder as they watched Ellice Gordon stalk toward them, stiff-legged. She wore jeans and a black denim jacket with big zippered pockets. As she came near them, she dipped her hand into one of the pockets and drew out her gun. She held it so it dangled, black and ugly, beside her thigh. Tory’s skin crawled, and she heard Jack’s hiss of indrawn breath.

  “Sweetheart,” Tory whispered. “Go in the cottage.”

  “No way.”

  “You need to call the police.”

  “She is the police, Mom.”

  “Not anymore, she isn’t.” She pulled him back one more step so she could slam the gate between them and Ellice. It wasn’t much protection, she knew, but it was something.

  Ellice crossed the lane and stood with her legs braced, smiling across the closed gate, her pale eyes the same color as the shifting mist. “Smart kid you have there, Tory,” she said.

  Tory had listened to that uninflected tone for hours, sitting in her office. It irritated her now, fanned the flame of her anger. She felt her own lip curl, and she wished she had teeth like Johnson’s to show.

  She answered in a hard voice she barely recognized, “I know that.” Her anger burned in her throat. She gathered herself, muscles tightening, preparing. She was angry at Ellice for disrupting her life, for threatening Jack. She was angry at herself for waiting too long to take a stand. As her fury grew, she felt like Johnson, taller than before, fiercer than anyone thought she could be. She was afraid of the gun, but that wasn’t important. Jack was what was important. She said, through gritted teeth, “What do you want, Ellice?”

  The gun twitched at Ellice’s side, as if it had a life of its own. Johnson’s growling grew louder, and his body, close to Tory’s leg, vibrated like a coiled spring. Tory moved slightly, trying to put herself between Ellice and Jack. The dog moved with her.

  Ellice’s thin lips curved in a feral smile. “What did you do with my file, Tory?”

  Tory felt Jack shift slightly behind her. He said in an undertone, “She broke in. Ransacked your office.” The gun twitched again in Ellice’s hand.

  “We’ve just sent photocopies of it to the sheriff,” Tory said. “This morning. We sent all of it.” Jack drew a breath, and she realized she had said “we.” Her voice sounded sharp and cold, like the blade of a knife. Like the blade Ellice had scarred her with. “He’ll have it in twenty-four hours.”

  Ellice’s freckled knuckles whitened as her grip tightened on the gun.

  “It’s over,” Tory said. “You have to face it, Ellice.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. You can’t run from it now.”

  Ellice’s eyelids flickered. “You tricked me.”

  “I did not. It was the other way around.”

  Ellice’s face suffused, her freckles disappearing in a rush of blood to her cheeks. She raised the gun, and it wavered right and left, its black muzzle like a searching eye, choosing first Tory, then Jack, then, as if aware there was a real threat, Johnson. “You’re just like all the others,” she said, her voice rising, shaking. “I trusted you, and you betrayed me.”

  Jack said tightly, “Put the gun down.”

  Tory said, “It’s okay, Jack. Ellice doesn’t want to shoot me. Or you.”

  Ellice barked a laugh. “You haven’t learned anything yet, have you, Tory?” She steadied the gun, pointing it at Tory’s breast. “You think you know so much, know-it-all therapist! All your theories and questions and suggestions! You don’t have any fucking idea what I might do!”

  Johnson surged forward against the closed gate, his growl becoming a snarl. Ellice startled, and turned the gun in his direction. Behind Tory, Jack’s breathing quickened, whistling in his throat.

  Tory said in a steely voice, �
�Ellice, if you fire that gun, you won’t feel better for long. You should have learned that.” She wanted to put a hand on Johnson’s collar, to pull him back, but she wasn’t sure if that would make things worse.

  “You’re not my therapist anymore, Tory.”

  “I’m not your enemy, either.”

  “All I have are enemies,” Ellice said. The gun looked enormous, the muzzle like a cannon, black as death, holding them all frozen in place.

  “There’s still a chance for you,” Tory said. She glared at Ellice, measuring the distance between them, judging the angle of the gun and how she could block it.

  As her heart began to race, time slowed. She could see every movement of Ellice’s eyes, the beat of her eyelids, the thread of her pulse in her freckled throat. She felt herself rise on her toes, ready to move. It was like being poised at the edge of a precipice, ready to leap into the abyss. Physical danger, at this moment, meant nothing. It didn’t seem real. She was no longer afraid even of the gun.

  She said, in that knife-sharp voice, “Put the gun away, Ellice. I’ll help you—”

  “No!” Ellice swung the gun up, away from the dog, past Tory, aiming now at Jack. “No one can help me.”

  Tory said, “Jack. Back up, and get in the house.”

  He said, “No, Mom,” but she snapped back, “Do it, son. Please.” She stepped directly in front of him. The coolness of the air at her back told her he was finally doing it, moving, backing away.

  The muzzle of the gun swung to follow him, and Tory seized her moment. She lunged forward, thrusting from her toes, her hands out, open and ready. She hit the gate with both palms, throwing all her weight behind the movement. The gate slammed open, the gate she had repaired so it swung smoothly and swiftly on well-oiled hinges. It struck Ellice a hard blow in the middle of her thighs. There was a sound to the impact, brief and sickening, as hard wood struck flesh and bone. Ellice stumbled backward, grunting, losing her balance, nearly falling.