THREE
T
he woman’s voice was low, mesmeric, peppered with pauses when she’d look around the room as if casting about for the next part of her story. And as it went on, from a childhood spent with lepers, to an orphanage, and a friendship with a girl named for butterflies, and a crossing made on an abandoned boat, Sol should have become more sure that this is what it was: a story that Amihan was conjuring from the darkness.
But Sol knew, sure as the night-time silence, that it was true, that when Amihan stopped talking it was only to relive the words, to remember what she saw. And when she reached the butterfly swarm, Sol closed her eyes, remembering chasing the wings down the hillside. Her eyes ached and did not want to open, but she did not want to miss a word.
The longest pause stretched between Amihan telling of Nanay’s silence, the touch of Bondoc’s hand, and the coming of the monsoon. Sol looked up sharply.
‘Your nanay didn’t die?’ she asked, shocked. She could feel tears running down her cheeks but she didn’t care. She thought there would have been a happier ending to the story.
The woman nodded slowly. ‘I’m afraid she did.’
‘But that’s not fair!’
‘That,’ said the woman, ‘is not entirely true.’
Sol stared at her uncomprehendingly.
‘It is sad,’ said the woman. ‘It broke my heart. But she was very sick. She was in pain. It took me years to realize it, but it was kinder that way.’
‘Like Mari said?’ said Sol, keen to show she had been paying attention.
The woman’s voice went small and soft. ‘Yes, like Mari said.’
‘Did you find her? Or Kidlat?’
‘I looked for as long as I could stand the heartache. I went to every workhouse and orphanage I could find, but they were not in Manila, or any of the other big cities or towns. He must have taken them elsewhere. There was no trace of them.’
Sol could tell the woman didn’t want to talk more about Mari, so she searched rapidly for another question. ‘And all that happened to you?’
Sol could not quite reconcile this woman with the young girl she had once been. It is always hard to imagine adults having childhoods.
The woman laughed. ‘Other people’s pasts seem like another country, don’t they? Telling you made it strange for me, too. Though it is my own story.’
‘What happened to the butterflies?’
‘The monsoon happened,’ Ami said simply. ‘The next day the streets were awash with dead butterflies.’ Her expression softened slightly at Sol’s stricken face. ‘It’s not a very happy part of the story, is it?’
Sol shook her head, her jaw tight.
‘But it was incredible they came at all. That those few samples dropped by Mr Zamora grew into a swarm.’
‘I wish it could have been a happier ending,’ mumbled Sol.
‘But it is a happy ending,’ Ami gestured around them. ‘Look where I ended up.’
‘Why here?’ said Sol.
‘Don’t you recognize it?’ asked Ami kindly. ‘A house covered in flowers?’
Sol gasped. ‘You didn’t – you didn’t find him? Your father?’
Another sad smile flickered on Ami’s face. ‘No. I was too late for that. But I found the house. As soon as Bondoc and I arrived in Manila, we asked every person we knew, and many we didn’t, whether they had heard of a blue-roofed house in a valley, covered in red flowers. One day I asked a woman selling tea in the market and she told me she once passed such a house, a few miles from Manila.’
‘I thought your father was a leper – sorry, Touched.’ Sol paused, hoping she had remembered this detail correctly in amongst the flood of this woman’s life. ‘I thought all the Touched were brought to Culion?’
‘Well, the only people who knew he was there – here – were either dead or ignorant of the fact he was Touched. No one was going to bother a man living in the middle of nowhere. Except me, of course.’
She grinned and Sol saw a flash of the Ami from the story – youthful, amazed and delighted by the way the world worked.
‘So I bought some tea as a gift, and walked to see him. But the house was more forest than house. His illness had worsened shortly after Nanay was taken from him. I was years late. He had died at home and was buried in a grove nearby by some locals. His grave was overgrown when I arrived, vines growing up the wooden stake they used to mark it.’ She paused and swallowed hard. ‘I left it like that, so the butterflies visit him. But Bondoc helped me fix up the house and I suppose it is wrong to say I did not find a father here. Bondoc grew into a fine one. We had some very happy years together.’
‘Did Bondoc adopt you?’
‘No, nothing so official!’ Ami laughed. ‘But he loved me like a daughter, and he had loved Nanay like a wife. It was the greatest sorrow of his life that he never got to say goodbye to her. At least I had that, though it took me many years to feel grateful for it.’
‘But he had you,’ said Sol quickly, not wanting to return to the sadness. ‘And you were happy.’
‘Of course I was,’ said Ami. ‘I am. How can I not be, in a place like this? And I planted a grove full of Mari’s favourite oranges to keep part of her close by. If you have or make something someone loves, I believe it brings them to you, even if they are not there.’
‘Like your nanay’s basin under your pillow?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Is the butterfly swarm why you decided to be a butterfly zookeeper?’
‘It was not so much a decision as a happening.’
Sol waited until the woman explained.
‘Well, this house has always attracted them, and a couple of years after Bondoc died I was bored of selling herbs. A scientist who’d heard about “the butterfly house” came and photographed it.’
She pointed to a framed black-and-white print hanging above the door.
‘He said he was a lepidopterist and would I be interested in selling him some butterflies.’
‘Did you give him the butterflies?’
Ami shook her head. ‘He wouldn’t agree to keep them alive. But he gave my name to some other scientists in Asia, and I was asked to create butterfly zoos for them. Once, I even travelled to a place called London, in England, and talked about my techniques.’
‘You’ve been to England?’ Sol had never met anyone who’d left the Philippines, let alone crossed oceans.
‘Yes. I gave a lecture at one of their societies.’ She pointed to another framed photo on the opposite wall: a grainy picture of her standing at a podium. ‘But that is another story.’
‘What was it like?’
‘Cold.’
Sol nodded. She had heard this from Cook, who read books set there. ‘Do you still travel?’
Ami stretched. ‘Not so much now. I like it here. I mostly make zoos for wealthy local families now.’ She grimaced slightly. ‘Less science, more art.’
Sol hesitated before asking her next question. She did not want to pull Ami back into the dark places of her past, but longed to know one last thing.
‘What happened to . . . to—’
‘Mr Zamora?’ Ami pointed to her bookshelf. ‘Second row, eighth one along.’
Sol pushed her tired body to its feet and found the book. The spine was a rich red, with gold lettering stamped along it: Butterfly Lives by Dr N. Zamora. She gaped and pulled it out, holding it warily.
‘He finished his book?’
Ami nodded. ‘And many more besides, but I only bought the one he wrote at the orphanage. I didn’t want to fill his pockets.’
‘Why did you buy this one?’ Sol wrinkled her nose at the handsome tome.
‘Because it’s good,’ said Ami simply. ‘It taught me a lot. And if I can take one good thing from my encounter with him, it’s better than only bad things.’
Sol bristled. ‘He should be in prison.’
The woman chuckled. ‘I seem to remember someone having not dissimilar views only a few hours ago.’ Sol
’s face flushed, but Ami’s expression was kindly. ‘And besides, he’s years dead. By all accounts he lived in a prison of his own making by the end. His sickness got worse and worse – it was punishment enough, I think.’
Sol frowned. ‘You sound almost sorry for him.’
‘I am very sorry for him.’ Ami’s face was in shadow. ‘He did not have a life even a quarter as good as mine has already been.’
There fell a great, deep silence that yawned almost as widely as Sol did. Ami smiled. ‘You should get some rest, we have to get going in a few hours.’
She settled Sol in her low bed, and took the chair by the fire for herself. It did not take long for Sol to fall into a sleep that swirled and shone with butterflies.
FOUR
S
ol woke to the smell of frying. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, amazed that the butterfly house was not a dream. The butterfly zookeeper looked around and smiled. ‘Eggs or fruit?’
‘Eggs, please. Is that it?’
‘Is what it?’
‘The basin, your nanay’s basin!’
Ami looked down at the eggs. ‘Well remembered. You know, I never did get the garlic taste out of it.’
They took their breakfast outside and ate their faintly garlicky omelettes, watching the butterflies begin to take flight. The house was even more beautiful in the sunrise, the pale light making the red flowers brighter, the butterflies glowing like extra petals over them.
When she’d finished, Ami said, ‘We should get going. I can’t be late for my talk at the school. I just need to put on my work clothes.’
She disappeared inside and emerged a few minutes later in a man’s suit, complete with waistcoat and silver fob watch. Sol stared.
‘Like it?’ asked Ami, taking a bowler hat from a hook by the door and tilting it on her head. ‘I bought it in London. It’s made for London weather so I do get a bit warm in it, but I love the shock it gives people.’
Sol had never seen a woman in a suit before, but Ami did look marvellous.
Sol watched as she caught a drowsy blue butterfly in a glass dome with a wooden base. ‘Is that a killing jar? Like Mr Zamora had?’
‘I’ve repurposed it.’ Ami smiled. Beneath the base she placed another wooden dish, with a hollow in which a smouldering herb could be placed. ‘It’s a resting jar now. It’ll keep the butterfly calm. I need to take one to show at the school. This kind’s rare. It’d be better if they would come here, but you know city folk. They always think their time is more important than anyone else’s.’
Sol followed the besuited woman out of the butterfly house to a stable housing a single, squat mule. ‘This is Siddy,’ Ami said, patting the animal’s neck. ‘Because he’s forever trying to spirit me off on adventures.’
As Ami readied the mule and cart, Sol ran to collect her shoes. She climbed the hill, calves straining, but at the top she found only the basket coated in orange mush, a few fragments of leather and the buckles from her sandals. They’d been eaten beyond recognition. Scanning the ground around her, Sol saw a busy line of ants bearing away some orange peel. She should’ve known better than to leave food in the forest.
She arrived back at the house nearly in tears. ‘The ants . . .’
‘Ah,’ said Ami. ‘I should’ve seen that coming.’
‘What am I going to do? I can’t go back without shoes. Mistress only bought them a couple of months ago.’
‘Nonsense, you can have a pair of mine.’ Ami bustled inside and brought out a pair of soft brown leather shoes, worn soft and only slightly too big.
She hugged Sol, who was suddenly feeling very tired and tearful.
‘Don’t cry. This is my fault, keeping you awake so late with that silly story when all you needed was a good night’s sl—’
‘It wasn’t silly!’ said Sol indignantly. ‘I’m glad you told me. I’m glad I met you, even though my sandals got eaten.’
‘I’m glad I met you, too.’ Ami released her gently. ‘I’ve had a thought.’
‘What kind of thought?’
‘A good one.’ Ami’s eyes twinkled. ‘But I can’t tell you it just yet.’
‘Why not?’
Ami tapped the side of her nose. Sol looked at her, confused. Ami repeated the gesture and said, ‘That means it’s a secret, but all will be revealed.’ Sol copied her and Ami laughed. ‘Exactly. We really do need to leave, though. Especially as I need to talk to your mistress first.’
They climbed into the cart, and Sol twisted around in her seat so she could watch the house fade from view through the trees. As soon as it was gone she might have felt that it had never existed at all, but for the crate of replacement oranges at her feet, the suit-clad woman beside her and the jewel-bright butterfly on her lap.
The road they took through the forest was so winding Sol was sure she’d never have found it on her own. Being in the butterfly house was like going back in time, and now, as the forest thinned and their road joined a paved, busy thoroughfare, it was as if the clock had been wound forward at double speed.
By the time they reached Manila, the streets were already packed. Some people turned to stare at Ami in her suit and bowler, but the woman only smiled and doffed the hat at them. Sol supposed she was used to people staring. She began to direct Ami through the twisting streets to her mistress’ house.
‘This is it.’ Sol indicated where to stop the cart. Ami looked up at the gleaming sign.
HOPE CHILDREN’S HOME
20 THE AVENUE
MANILA
PROPRIETORS: Mr & Miss Rey
‘I need to go around the back,’ continued Sol, ‘so Cook doesn’t see me. I’ll be in trouble.’
Ami clucked her tongue. ‘Ridiculous. You shall come in the front with me.’
She tucked the glass dome under one arm, and took Sol’s hand in hers. ‘Ring the doorbell, please.’
Sol, emboldened by Ami’s confidence, did so.
Cook opened the door with a wooden spoon in her hand, looking harried. The sound of a baby crying rose towards them. Her face froze in a caricature of shock as she took in the woman’s bowler hat, the butterfly, and Sol at her side, dusty and grinning.
‘Hello, there,’ said Ami jovially. ‘I’m Amihan, living lepidopterist and butterfly zookeeper.’ She squeezed Sol’s hand at this. ‘Sol found my house last night. She got lost on the way back from the orange farm, I believe. And if you don’t mind me saying so, it’s a bit careless of you to allow her to make such a journey alone.’
‘I . . .’ Cook’s eyes flicked from Sol to Ami to her bowler hat.
‘In fact, I should rather like to speak to you about Sol’s future. She’s a bright young girl, and I believe she has all the makings of a butterfly zookeeper.’
‘I . . .’
‘Please, let me finish. I should very much like to discuss the possibility of apprenticing her.’
‘I . . .’ Cook was braced against the door frame, her wooden spoon held up against the barrage of Ami’s words, dripping gravy.
Hot sparks somersaulted inside Sol’s stomach. ‘You can’t mean—’
Ami looked down at her with her warm brown eyes. ‘I very much do mean.’ She turned her attention back to Cook. ‘Well?’
Sol could barely speak through her grin. ‘That’s Cook.’
‘Oh, I apologize, I thought you were the mistress,’ said Ami, bowing deeply. Cook giggled, wiping her hands down her grease-stained apron. ‘Could I have a word with her before I go to my talk?’
‘Of course,’ said Cook, seeming to remember herself. ‘Come in, please.’
Ami dropped her hand as they stepped inside and instantly Sol felt a little less brave.
‘I’ll just go and fetch her. Sol, can you—’
‘Sol stays here,’ said Ami, an edge of sharpness in her voice.
Cook gestured for them to follow her into the front sitting room. ‘Wait here.’
Sol felt especially grubby in the pristine room, which Mistress kept for enter
taining rich women who came to coo and donate money to their cause. Ami settled in a carved wooden armchair with silk cushions, crossing her legs like a man and looking as comfortable as if she lived there, not in a wild house covered in wings. After a few moments Cook returned alone.
‘She won’t come,’ she said apologetically. ‘She’s busy with the baby. Got left on the doorstep two nights ago, poor thing, and won’t stop fretting.’
‘Then I shall have to go to her,’ said Ami, up on her feet and striding past Cook before she could react. Sol scuttled after her, Cook just behind, as they followed the baby’s cries down the hall. Ami stopped outside the day-nursery door and raised her hand to knock, but froze. Her dark face paled.
‘What is it?’ whispered Cook to Sol, but Sol shook her head.
Ami lifted a finger to her lips. It seemed as if she were holding her breath. Beneath the baby’s sobs the mistress’ voice was just audible, singing low and soft.
‘Listen!’ Ami hissed. Sol listened. It was Spanish, and she didn’t understand the words. Then Ami started singing along in Tagalog.
Find me a boat and we’ll float to the sea, Come, little one,
come, there is so much to be.
The world is so big and there’s so much to see,
Come, little one, come and go floating with me.
The crying inside dipped and the singing stopped.
‘Who’s there?’ asked a voice sharply.
There were brisk footsteps and as the door opened Sol stumbled instinctively backwards.
The master stood in the doorway. At the sight of Ami his face drained of colour. They looked at each other, and around them formed a silence so complete and so deep Sol felt she could fall into it.
‘Well?’ said the mistress’ voice. ‘Who is it, Kidlat?’
A string yanked at Sol’s insides. She had never heard Mr Rey’s first name, and until this moment had never cared. But now it all revealed itself, sure and bright as daylight.
Mr Rey shrank back into the room, and a moment later the mistress appeared in the doorway, the quietening baby on her hip, light hair dishevelled. From behind Ami, Sol saw her pale eyes widen as her expression shifted into disbelief. She held a gloved hand up to her mouth.
The Island at the End of Everything Page 16
