by Rene Denfeld
Red butterflies, Celia had thought. Up on the gray ceilings, drinking from the rust-stained sink. Flying in soft red crescents. Landing softer than silk on her arms, stroking the secret softness of her upper arms. Jessica had put the paper towels in her panties. Then the nurse Sally had come, and Jessica got to go home.
Celia had returned to class, to the titter that was now saved for her. Like she had caught the blood. “Do you want to share your project?” Mr. Calhoun had asked in a kind voice, and Celia shook her head, no.
The next day he gave her project back. He had written a big A on every single page, ruining it. Celia threw it in a ditch on the way home.
* * *
The scar-faced man hadn’t been around for a couple days. Celia hadn’t seen Naomi either. The last time she had seen her was the evening Celia pissed her pants and Naomi gave her the book. Celia wanted to talk to Naomi but didn’t know how. She thought maybe Naomi could tell her what to do about her sister. She didn’t want to leave her sister with Teddy. There was one risk Celia could take, but it might mean losing her sister forever.
Without the scar-faced man around, the streets felt safer. Not that they really were. Celia guessed that was proven true when the next day they pulled another corpse out of the river. It was the girl with the orange hair, and Celia, like all the others, hadn’t even noticed she was missing.
The only thing worse than a street birthday, Celia decided, was a street funeral.
It was pathetic, really. All of Celia fought back against the spectacle: a little gathering of the street people outside Sisters of Mercy, a small pile of candles and flowers—which Celia knew would be stolen by morning—on the corner where the girl had often hung out.
“What was her name?” the others asked one another, and someone said she was called Ginger or maybe it was Josie. One boy said she was from Madras, but no one believed him because he was a liar, and the girl with the cell phone offered that once the orange-haired girl said she came from the mountains. Which mountains? No one knew.
Suddenly everyone had been her best friend, and then she was forgotten. This happened in the space of twenty minutes. If Celia died, no one would remember her either.
She sat down next to the candles, scraping wax off the sidewalk with her nails. Rich came and crouched next to her. “Did you know her?” he asked, damp bangs against his forehead.
“Not really,” Celia answered, stealing a look at him. “I mean, do any of us know each other?”
“I know you.”
“You don’t know the worst about me.” Celia turned away.
“No. I know the best.”
He reached with a cold damp hand. Celia took it.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s have some fun.”
Rich took her on the bus to the outskirts of town, to an area that first looked industrial and then fascinated her when it switched to marshy ditches and ponds. She even saw a man fishing. Finally Rich signaled it was time to get off.
“I don’t like surprises,” Celia said, like every other abused kid on the planet.
“It’s a good surprise,” he said, and they stepped off the bus to a warm, curious smell. It took her a moment to realize what it was. Hay. There was something else, too. Celia couldn’t place it, but it reminded her of circuses coming to town. Manure, she realized. They walked an empty service road, and then, turning the corner, Celia was astonished to see corrals. Barns. And horses.
“This is the back of the horse track,” Rich said, and sure enough, in the distance, Celia could see the corrugated steel of the stands.
For the next dream of a few hours, she got to pet the horses, brush them and touch their velvet noses, see their amazing teeth, giggle at their pendulous bellies. The old Mexican man who worked the stables seemed to know Rich. “I was riding the buses one day, just to stay warm, and saw the track,” Rich explained. “I come here to help out when I can.”
“You should get a job here,” Celia announced, and the old man nodded yes, yes, but Rich shook his head. “I don’t even have a diploma,” he said, when what he was really thinking was he didn’t want to leave Celia all alone on the streets.
“No one needs a diploma to ride a horse,” Celia announced, though she never had.
That changed when the old man helped her sit on a stable pony, used to guide the racehorses to the track. The pony felt huge to Celia, broad-backed and sweet. She sat on his back and closed her eyes and felt the rough hair, the saddle between her legs. Her hands tangled in the mane.
“Celia?” Rich asked after a while.
This, she agreed, was fun.
Chapter 32
Naomi put the autopsy photo, given to her by the medical examiner, facedown on the kitchen table. It was out of respect for the sad girl with orange hair and blackened eyes. Once alive, but no longer.
“Didn’t the Feds put up surveillance on the docks?” Jerome asked.
“It’s been all over the news,” Naomi said. “I’m sure he knows better than to return there. He just found someplace else to dump her.” She paused. “Her feet show signs of recent use. He’s not keeping them as long.”
“Do you think it’s Wesley taking the street girls?” Jerome asked. It was the first time either of them had voiced the possibility out loud.
Naomi took a deep breath, picked up the cold cup of coffee left on the table. She carried it to the kitchen window overlooking Diane’s garden. She thought of all the nonwindows of her captivity. How she had made windows out of dirt. She thought of Celia and her butterflies.
“The pattern is the same,” she said, taking a drink of the bitter coffee. “Children of the forgotten, harvested like the berries of the field.”
Jerome winced behind her. He let his face smooth out before she turned.
“I wonder,” Naomi said, “what Celia is doing right now.”
With Naomi gone from the house, Jerome made a work area on the kitchen table. Diane was out, running errands. Since hearing Naomi and Jerome wanted to stay, she had been a flurry of activity, sewing curtains, finding her old knitting needles. Jerome viewed the knitting with suspicion. He sure hoped Diane didn’t expect—
He turned his attention to the photograph from the bundle.
Mary Tarseed. He found her easily enough in the online census. The Tarseed family had been the rare natives who had been allowed to stay when soldiers had forced them off their rich ancestral lands. From what Jerome could gather, Mary’s grandfather had been the Elk Crossing town blacksmith, which might have explained why their family was not forced out.
Jerome turned the photo over. Tasmin, remember I kept you safe.
One of the census listings showed Mary Tarseed had a toddler daughter, Tasmin. If she was alive, she would now be thirty—his and Naomi’s age. But in the next town census—ten years later—Tasmin was not listed. Jerome hoped it was not what he feared.
* * *
Celia was lying on the grass of the waterfront. The girl was motionless, eyes open but unseeing. The clouds passed through the cherry blossom trees above her and speckled her face with shadows.
Naomi sat down under a tree nearby and waited.
Rich, who had led Naomi here, stood behind her, awkwardly. “I can keep an eye on her,” Naomi told him, and he shambled away. Naomi could feel the humiliation that followed the boy. To be so alone at such an age.
Celia had taken off her jean jacket. She was wearing a faded blue T-shirt underneath. Her arms were slender, her chest flat. Her hands lay open, relaxed in the grass. Her eyes were unfocused, her cheek against a patch of tiny daisies in the clover. Naomi wondered what Celia was thinking or feeling. Maybe it was just a moment of respite in the middle of the terror. She could see now that Celia was trapped. The streets were a kind of captivity, too.
Celia sat up, and in her eyes Naomi could see the clouds, passing.
Moving slowly, wanting to talk to the girl while she was still in her dreamlike state, Naomi walked over to where Celia sat, her hands soft in the
grass.
Lowering herself carefully nearby, Naomi joined her.
“What are you thinking about, Celia?” she asked, her voice gentle.
“The butterfly museum.”
Naomi felt her strong thighs press against the velvet of the grass. The world transmitted through her legs reaffirmed her life force. “Tell me about it.”
Celia’s eyes filled with wonder. “It is a building, out in the country, where there are green hills. It is big, with tall walls and many windows. At the top are skylights, and they keep them polished clean. My mother told me about it.”
“Of course,” Naomi said.
There was a long pause. Celia was looking away, over the river. Naomi saw the tender heartbeat of her temple. The air seemed to lift around the girl.
“It’s a con–conservatory. A living museum. There are full-sized trees in pots, and all sorts of plants. Every room is filled with flowers. There is every kind of plant a butterfly might need for nectar there, and food for the caterpillars, too. There’s even humidifiers. To make the air soft.”
“For moisture.”
“Yes! That’s it.” Celia’s dreamy eyes found Naomi. “You can go room to room there, and each room is filled with butterflies. Sometimes they all take flight, and you can look up to see them flying all together and swirling around the skylights above you. There are more butterflies than you can imagine there. In the butterfly museum.”
Naomi could feel her heart aching in her chest.
“Do you want to go there, Celia?”
“Yes. Someday I will go there. I’m going to stand in the middle of the butterflies. I will know then.”
“What will you know?”
Celia did not answer. The two sat for a long time. Naomi could see Celia slowly coming back to herself, saw the aching pain in the girl as she woke back to the reality of her life.
Celia blinked. She thought of the dark house she had seen in the industrial area, the boarded-up windows. She felt the eyes behind the window. She wondered if she should tell Naomi about it. But what if Naomi thought Celia was a liar, too? Celia couldn’t bear that.
Celia glanced at Naomi. She seemed like she would listen. Celia opened her mouth, but Naomi was standing up, shaking out her legs. Her eyes were on the falling sun.
“I need to go, Celia,” Naomi said. “I promise I’ll come back, and find you, soon. Will you try and be safe for me?”
Celia nodded.
Rushing through the waterfront back to her car, Naomi saw the small man in round glasses, wearing his fussy suit. He looked like he had been watching her and Celia talk. She felt frustration. Once again the Feds were piddling around when they should be working. The small man watched her hurry past. He smiled at her, as if he were the one judging her.
Naomi walked in to dinner on the table. A lamb chop was sticking up off a plate, a bowl of Jerome’s succotash. Diane turned and smiled over a salad she was carrying to the table, and Jerome was at the counter, pouring fresh cider. It was a scene of domesticity that reminded Naomi, sharply, of her years with Mrs. Cottle. The pungent smell of canning spices, the bulbous pickles in the brine on the back porch. A wind swept through the kitchen of her mind, reminding her of all she had lost.
Run, Naomi, said her mind. Run now while you have the time.
Shut up, mind, she responded.
“You’re just in time,” Diane said, smiling. She looked years younger. Jerome was smiling to himself, as if pleased to see Diane so happy. “Did you have a busy day, dear?”
“I did,” Naomi said, taking a seat.
Naomi woke in the middle of the night. Usually this would be from a nightmare, but this time there was nothing. She turned her head to look out the window. Outside a fog hung above the street, sparkling the trees with a thick mist. The moon shadowed behind the clouds. Each of the little branches, Naomi thought, was a hand waving hello.
How had she survived? She knew someplace in her mind was a story. It might be like Celia’s butterflies, rich in color, like a children’s book. Maybe she had pretended to be someone else, as the woman in the shelter did, making a cape from a pillowcase. She knew she had sung to her sister—she had that knowledge—but the rest of it was gone. Whatever escape hatch Naomi had used had disappeared behind her, and for this she was sad. She would never know how she had survived. The miracle of her own mind was lost to her.
But not for Celia. The girl reminded Naomi of children she had rescued. The ones who survived captivity were the children who had learned to escape into make-believe worlds. Sometimes, later, their parents wanted them to forget these imaginary worlds. They thought that would be a sign of healing—to leave it all behind. Naomi tried to caution such parents. What the children needed, she told them, was to hear they were loved. Not loved despite what happened to them. Loved including it.
That’s what we all want, Naomi thought, yawning. She felt the warmth of Jerome next to her and felt herself slide back towards sleep. I must remember to tell my sister that, when I find her.
Chapter 33
Celia waited, for the longest time, in the waterfront grass. She had heard Naomi say she would come back.
Dusk fell and night came, and the lawns filled with more street people. Schools of drunks like fish, gasping mouths open as they slumbered, passed out in the grass. A junkie took out his kit right there, in front of Celia. He couldn’t hit his arm, so he did his neck, his black bullet eyes on her the whole time he injected the dirty shit.
Still she waited.
Rich came. He was eating an old hoagie sandwich, the kind the corner market sold way past the pull date. A slice of bologna hung out the end like a flap, and Celia could see how the inside was green. His face was at the yellowish point of healing, like a sick banana.
“We should go, this place sucks,” Rich said, which was his way of saying it wasn’t safe.
Celia didn’t want to go. Naomi had said she was coming back.
The junkie had fallen over, the needle still in his neck. Celia wondered if he was dead. Rich ate his sandwich, folding the end of bologna in his mouth. He stood over Celia, watching as the night deepened and the bars closed, ejecting drunks like spawn, and the cars drove by on the ramps above them like Christmas lights, blinking for a party they were not invited to.
“Come on, Celia,” Rich said, worried.
From down the waterfront came the sound of hooting, and Rich jumped. Celia could almost smell alcohol on the wind. The jocks might come back. They would come find the junkie. They would find Celia. There were no lights down here. Celia could get beat up like Rich had been. Or worse.
“I don’t want to leave,” Celia said. “Naomi said she would come back.”
She turned her head, peering in the dark, hoping that at any moment Naomi would materialize from the dark, walking with that calm, open look in her eyes.
It didn’t happen.
“I want to get the fuck out of here,” Rich said, nervously.
Slowly, Celia rose. Her legs had stiffened in the grass. Looking up from the waterfront, they could see groups of young men. Were they friendly? There was no way to know.
Her heart pounding, Celia looked around desperately.
“Please, Celia.” Rich had his hand out, ready to drag her away.
* * *
“Do you remember telling me about the butterfly museum, Momma?”
It was the next day, and Celia’s mother was sitting on the edge of the couch. She was in the place between coming down and needing her next fix, the desperate, sweaty time that would soon drive her to distraction. There really was no good time to talk to an addict, Celia had discovered. They were either high or in withdrawal. Either way they forgot what you said.
“What?” Her mother looked confused. She rubbed a shaking hand over a pale forehead.
“It’s not too late,” Celia said.
The eyes startled, looked up. Celia could see the fear.
“Not too late for what?” her mother asked, reluctantly.
Celia noticed her hand had left a mark, as though her mom was shrinking inside.
“Too late”—Celia took a deep breath—“to get rid of Teddy. To get clean. Remember how you said you wanted to be a lep—a lepi–lepidopterist?”
Her mother’s eyes were on her. They were panicked. The addiction was talking to her, saying, Run away, hide. Cover your tracks. “I never said that.”
“Yes, you did!”
“You were too young to remember that.”
Celia felt helpless fury. Her mom had just admitted saying it. “Just because you gave up doesn’t mean I need to!”
Her mother’s eyes teared up. “You’re just saying that.”
“Teddy hurt me, Mom.”
“That’s not true. Teddy said—”
“No more, Mom. No more lies. I’m not the liar. Teddy is. The jury was wrong. You were wrong. I told the truth.”
Her mother’s face looked up at her, white with shock at being told so firmly. Celia could see the guilt rising, all the questions belief would bring. Her own failures as a mother. The face that would stare back in the morning mirror, asking, What did you do? The black call of heroin, not just to soothe the need but to wash away the truth.
“You can still stop, Mom. It’s not too late.”
“Maybe it is,” her mom whispered, looking at the floor.
Celia turned and walked away. She knew she was never coming back.
The inside of the school was the same. The chairs in the front office where she’d sat for lice check were still there. The hallways were empty. Celia had made sure to arrive as school was letting out. Alyssa would be going home, to find their mother more than likely stoned on the couch.
Mrs. Wilkerson looked up from her desk when Celia entered. She no longer looked incredibly old to Celia. She was more like maybe sixty.
