On Shadowed Wings (An Ash Grove Short Story)

by Amanda DeWees

  On Shadowed Wings:

  An Ash Grove Short Story

  by Amanda DeWees

  Copyright © 2013 Amanda DeWees

  Smashwords Edition

  Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied, or distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art by PhatPuppy Art

  Visit the author at amandadewees.com or on Facebook as Author Amanda DeWees.

  Synopsis: In this short story, high-school senior Gail and college student Jim team up to investigate a mysterious butterfly hatching at Ash Grove—and save a little girl from danger.

  Note: This story takes place about ten years before The Shadow and the Rose.

  On Shadowed Wings

  (An Ash Grove Short Story)

  “Don’t move!”

  Gail Emerson froze at the command. She was kneeling with her hands in the dirt around the roots of a butterfly bush. It was a sunny spring day in North Carolina, and up to now nothing more menacing than an early mosquito had put in an appearance.

  Her eyes darted around in search of her trowel—she could use it as a weapon if he threatened her or Joy—and then the man’s voice came again, less commanding this time.

  “You have a Diana on your head,” he said. At a lower volume, his voice was pleasantly deep and rich. “I want to get a picture.”

  “I have a what on my head?” But she tried to keep still all the same.

  For a second there was silence, and she could hear the sound of the Hiwassee River rushing by just across the road at the bottom of the hill. Then there came the synthetic click of a digital camera shooting, and the voice said in satisfaction, “Got it. You can move now.”

  Gail stood up and turned around. The man holding the camera was a lot younger than she’d expected from his voice, probably around eighteen, like her. He had sandy hair in need of cutting and wore glasses, and his smile was shy but friendly. His t-shirt showed off strong shoulders and arms, and she found herself wishing she was wearing something nicer than her grubby gardening jeans and hadn’t just scraped her hair back into a ponytail instead of doing something with it.

  “I’m Jim Brody,” he said, holding out a hand to shake. She hadn’t expected that formality, and she stripped off her gardening glove to take his hand. Before she could introduce herself, a child’s voice piped, “What’s a Diana?”

  Joy had been sitting so quietly on the front steps with her book that Gail wasn’t surprised when Jim started. Joy was regarding him with the curiosity she greeted most new experiences with. She wasn’t a timid girl, unlike most of the other bookworms Gail knew.

  “Its full name is Diana fritillary,” said Jim. “But you probably know it by a different name.” He didn’t talk down to her, Gail was glad to notice, but kept his voice matter-of-fact. Joy was smart for her age and caught on a lot faster than most adults realized. She was short and sturdy with a button nose—not exactly pretty, but cute.

  “Can I see?” she asked, descending the steps.

  “Sure.” He hunkered down to her eye level and showed her and Gail the camera display: the top of Gail’s head, her brown hair in its messy ponytail, and a blue-and-black butterfly poised there.

  “It’s a butterfly,” said Joy, surprised. “Why did you call it a Diana something?”

  “Because that’s its proper name,” Jim explained. “Most animals have specific names. You know how dogs can be poodles or dachshunds or terriers? Well, butterflies are like that too. This one just happens to be called Diana.”

  Joy said thoughtfully, “That’s almost my mother’s name.”

  “Oh?” Jim’s eyes went to Gail questioningly, and she gave an incredulous snort.

  “I’m Joy’s sitter, Gail. How old do you think I am, anyway?”

  “I’m bad with ages,” he said apologetically. He did look a little dreamy and vague, as if he was calculating equations in his head. “For instance,” he said, addressing himself to Joy again, “you look like a young lady of around… twelve?”

  Joy wrinkled her nose. “I’m seven.”

  “See? I told you.”

  Gail relaxed, thinking the dangerous subject had been averted. But then he asked Joy, “What’s your mother’s name?”

  “Anna.” Joy’s blue eyes were very grave, but the guy didn’t take the hint.

  “Well, there is actually a butterfly named Anna,” he told her. “It’s called Anna’s Eighty-eight, because the markings on its wings look like the number.”

  “Is that true?” Joy’s freckled face lit up, and Gail wished she knew the guy well enough to signal to him to talk about something else.

  But he was encouraged by Joy’s enthusiasm. “It sure is,” he said. “There aren’t any in North Carolina, though. They live farther south, where it’s warmer.”

  “I wish I could see one,” said Joy wistfully.

  “Maybe your dad can take you on a trip to where they live,” Gail offered, trying to steer the conversation into safer waters. “Where can you find them?”

  “Mexico, sometimes Texas.” He told Joy, “I’ll bet your mom would like to see it too. The three of you should do that sometime—take a family trip.”

  All the animation left Joy’s face. “My mother’s dead,” she said.

  He blinked as if he’d walked into a wall. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I didn’t know.” He look to Gail for confirmation, and she gave a short nod. She’d hoped to head him off before the conversation reached this point.

  Joy was staring at the ground. “Can I go inside?” she asked Gail.

  “Of course, hon. Don’t forget your book.” As Joy climbed the porch steps, Gail added to the visitor, “I should go in too to keep an eye on her. Dr. Sumner ought to be home soon; did you want to see him about something?”

  He was watching Joy with a troubled face. “Yeah, but now I feel like I shouldn’t butt in. If his wife has just, you know—”

  “Anna’s been gone for a little over a year now.” Gail tried to keep her voice brisk. Losing Anna had been almost like losing a big sister, not just a neighbor.

  “I just thought, since you were doing his gardening…”

  “I just pitch in where I can, and gardening is kind of my thing. Dr. Sumner still hasn’t gotten back on top of everything. They were so in love—it just really hit him hard.”

  “I’m really sorry,” said Jim again. “I wish I’d known; I wouldn’t have been so clumsy. Do you think I upset her?”

  “She’ll be okay. Joy’s a trouper.” She was more resilient than her father, but maybe that was being a kid. But she had gotten quieter since her mom had died, that was for sure, and Gail worried about that sometimes.

  “Was it cancer?” Jim was asking.

  “No, a car accident.” She didn’t want to talk any more about it, so she gathered up her gardening things and started up the steps. “Come on in and have something to drink while you wait. Are you in school around here?”

  “Young Harris.” He followed her to the kitchen, where she started filling glasses with ice. “This is just my first year, but I’m liking it here. It’s so different from Atlanta.”

  “That’s where you’
re from?”

  He nodded. “Of course, anything would be different from what I’m used to. I’ve been homeschooled since I was twelve. I like it out here in the country, though.”

  Gail had a sudden mental image of him leaning on a split-rail fence, hair ruffled by the breeze, chewing lazily on a straw. He’d look good in the cowboy getup, except for his glasses. They made him look like a fairer-haired Clark Kent.

  Then she pulled herself together. She shouldn’t be letting some strange guy dazzle her just because he was cute and good with kids. It was disloyal.

  Still, it bugged her that Darryl didn’t seem to know how to get along with Joy. He always talked extra loud and exaggerated everything, as if she were stupid or practically a baby. Joy saw right through him: now whenever Darryl came around she would bury her nose in a book to avoid talking with him.

  There are more important qualities in a boyfriend than being good with kids, she told herself. Like, say, a sense of purpose. And Darryl had that by the metric ton. He was going to be an actor—no matter what it took.

  But she shouldn’t zone out when Jim was talking. He was asking her what college she’d chosen.

  “I’m still trying to decide,” she admitted. She’d been accepted to several different schools, but she hadn’t chosen one yet. “My boyfriend wants me to go to UCLA with him. But I can’t seem to make a decision.”

  “Oh?” was all he said, but his eyes were full of questions. She could tell he was trying not to be nosy, but suddenly something about his calm, quiet presence made her want to confide in him. He could give her an objective opinion, maybe a perspective that she hadn’t thought of.

  “It’s Joy,” she confessed. “Her dad’s been keeping to himself so much since Anna died. I know he’s still grieving, but it means he’s kind of withdrawn from her along with everybody else. Poor kid needs somebody to look out for her. I feel like if I go someplace far away for college she won’t have anybody.”

  He thought that over. “You don’t think her dad will step up when you aren’t available?”

  “I don’t think he’ll neglect her, exactly. He’s just… he’s been so vague and out of it. I can’t see him remembering to make play dates for her or take her to the park. My parents will be happy to help out when they’re here, of course, but they’re going to be traveling a lot once I’m settled at college.” Abruptly she stopped, remembering this was practically a stranger she was blabbing the Sumners’ business to. “Anyway,” she said lamely, “I need to make up my mind soon whether UCLA is the right choice.”

  “Do you know what you want to major in? That could be an important factor.”

  “Probably math. But I can study that just about anywhere. So what are you taking at Young Harris?”

  He didn’t comment on the change of subject, and she was grateful for that. “Biology,” he said. “You probably figured out I’m into lepidoptery.”

  “I’m guessing that means butterflies.”

  “And moths, yeah. That’s why I want to talk to Dr. Sumner.”

  “That’s hardly my area of specialization,” was Dr. Sumner’s response to this when he arrived a short time later. He was a bearded forty-something with glasses, and as Jim introduced himself and they shook hands Gail reflected that they looked like members of the same club—a scholarly association, say. She wasn’t used to being around guys her own age that even looked like they ever cracked a book, let alone got excited about anything scientific.

  “It’s actually a local legend that led me to you,” Jim explained. “And everyone agrees that you’re the expert on local folklore. I’ve been trying to track down a rare species of butterfly or moth that’s been sighted around here, and I read somewhere about this phenomenon that’s supposed to take place every year on the last night of April.”

  “On Beltane night, then.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s one of the major holidays from the Celtic tradition: the coming of spring and the time of fertility.” Dr. Sumner popped the top on a soda and took a seat at the dining room table with them. His eyes still held the strained look that had been there ever since his wife died, but interest in the purpose of Jim’s visit had brought some animation to his face. “In fact, it would make sense that there would be a butterfly connection,” he added. “Beltane is the night of fire, when people would light ritual bonfires and walk their livestock between them to bring fertility and good harvests in the coming year. Women who desired children would even jump over a bonfire to bring about a pregnancy.”

  “Where do butterflies come in?” Gail asked. She knew about Beltane, because Ash Grove High School for the Performing Arts, where Dr. Sumner taught English, observed the holiday every year with an arts festival and student dance. It was a big deal for locals. Thanks to Darryl, she was even going to the Beltane dance this year—not a chance she’d had before, since she was a Murphy High student. But this was the first time she’d heard wildlife brought into it.

  “In old Gaelic, the same word—tiene-dhe—is believed to have been used both for the butterfly and for the fire of the gods,” Dr. Sumner explained. “The ritual fires of Beltane have a sacred quality shared by the butterfly, which is sometimes held to be the soul of someone who has died.”

  His voice dulled a little there, and Gail had to give Jim credit for tact: he took up the conversation and easily steered it away from Dr. Sumner’s wife. “What I was told,” he said, “is that on that night—Beltane night, I guess—there’s a place where hundreds of moths hatch from their cocoons at once. There’s some debate over whether they’re butterflies or moths, actually, because no one seems to have gotten a picture of them.”

  “Hundreds of butterflies,” Gail said. “So that’s like hundreds of souls.”

  “Or hundreds of wishes,” said Joy unexpectedly. She had entered the room silently and come to stand beside her dad’s chair.

  Absently he kissed the top of her head and asked, “What do you mean, honey?”

  “Gail told me.”

  When they turned expectant faces toward her, Gail said sheepishly, “A friend of mine who’s part Cherokee told me a story once, and I told it to Joy. If you want a wish to come true, you catch a butterfly and whisper your wish to it. Because they don’t make any sound, they can’t tell anyone except the Great Spirit your wish. When you release the butterfly, it carries the wish to heaven and to the Great Spirit.”

  “What a charming story.” Dr. Sumner was soon absorbed in the map that Jim had pulled out of his pocket and unfolded, and Joy, dejected, drifted over to sit by Gail. “So where is this miraculous butterfly convention held to take place?” Dr. Sumner asked Jim.

  “On the Ash Grove grounds.”

  “Ah,” said Dr. Sumner, more coolly. “Of course. Where everything supernatural supposedly happens, if one listens to gossip.”

  “Is it just gossip, sir?”

  To Gail’s amazement, Jim’s expression was serious. Did he really believe all the crazy stories the townies told about the school? There were lots of outlandish legends about the school and its founder, an eccentric named Josiah Cavanaugh who had founded it almost a century ago. She wouldn’t have thought a guy with a scientific bent would put any store in them.

  Then again, maybe science was at the root of things. Maybe there was really some strange electromagnetic field surrounding the campus, or some fringe-science thing, that made weirdness seem to focus there. Like weather that supposedly only happened to the campus. Or like the story that had made all the papers last year, when a woman who supposedly had vanished twenty years ago as a student there had turned up one day, still looking as if she was sixteen years old.

  “I wish I could help you, but I’m afraid I’ve never heard of such a phenomenon at Ash Grove,” said Dr. Sumner. “I’d be careful exploring the grounds at night, by the way, especially since they’re tearing down the old amphitheater. And in the more remote parts of campus, help might be a long time coming if you get into difficulty. Have you
found anything promising so far?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary. A nice Diana fritillary, though.” Jim showed him the photo of the butterfly on the top of Gail’s head, and the professor raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Thinking of changing boyfriends, Gail?”

  Startled, she said, “What?”

  Dr. Sumner smiled. It was as close as he came to laughing anymore. “Local lore has it that when a butterfly lands on a young woman’s head or clothes she’s about to change sweethearts. Has Darryl not been behaving himself?”

  Gail was very conscious that Jim’s eyes were on her, and she said more shortly than she meant to, “He’s fine. I’m supposed to meet him at my house, actually, so unless there’s anything else you need me for—?”

  The professor waved a hand in dismissal. “No, I won’t keep you any longer. Thank you for helping out, Gail.”

  Jim pushed his chair back from the table. “I’d better be getting along too. Thanks for talking to me, Dr. Sumner. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

  Gail gave Joy a quick goodbye hug and collected her gardening things. When she and Jim emerged from the house, she saw a bicycle leaning against a tree. So that was how he had managed to sneak up on her. “How did you get so interested in butterflies?” she asked as he walked with her to her house, just next door.

  “Their whole life cycle fascinates me. How quickly they transform. Have you ever seen a butterfly come out of its chrysalis?”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s amazing. It’s like—” He rubbed the back of his neck as he searched for words. “Well, I’ve never seen a baby being born, but this is like what I imagine that’s like, only with less, you know, mess and pain. The way it finds its way out into the world, and waits for its wings to dry and harden so it can fly, and then when it first tries them…”

  “Coming to life,” she said, warmed by his enthusiasm. His glasses slipped down his nose when he got excited, and she saw that his eyes were a beautiful blue-green.