The Language of Moths

by Christopher Barzak

  "She's autistic,” Eliot says all of a sudden, pre-empting Roy's remarks. He pushes against the porch floorboards to make them swing faster, so Roy can't get off this ride too quick.

  Roy doesn't seem shocked, though, or even interested in Dawn's erratic behavior. And why should he be? Eliot thinks. Roy himself has told Eliot much weirder things about his family. He told Eliot that first day, over an ice cream at the gas station, that he lived with his grandparents because his mother was an alcoholic, and his father was who-knows-where. That his mother would fight anyone in town, even Roy when she was drunk. That his grandfather was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, that he had found the white robes and the pointy hood in his grandfather's closet. That his grandmother used to sit him down at night before bed and read to him for a half an hour out of the Bible, and that afterwards she'd tell him he was born in sin, and should pray for forgiveness. It frightens Eliot a little, and makes him shiver, thinking of what it must be like to be Roy. He only hopes Roy's secret-sharing doesn't require an admission of his own private weirdnesses. He's not ready for that.

  "Let's go inside,” Roy says, putting his feet down flat on the porch. The swing suddenly comes to a halt. Roy stands and Eliot follows him into the cabin, already knowing what's going to happen. It's a vice of Roy's, fooling around in places where they might get caught.

  We won't get caught here, Eliot thinks. His parents are outside by the heat of the fire, involved in their own problems. They won't bother to come inside the cabin now. Roy leads Eliot to the pink-quilted cot and they lay down together, and begin to kiss.

  Roy's lips are larger than Eliot's. Eliot feels like his lips aren't big enough. They're too thin and soft, like rose petals. Roy, he thinks, would probably like his lips bigger and rougher, chapped even. He can feel the cracks in Roy's lips, can taste Roy's cigarettes. Roy's stubble scratches Eliot's cheeks in this way that makes him crazy. Then Roy is pulling off Eliot's shirt, kissing Eliot's stomach, unbuttoning Eliot's shorts. Eliot closes his eyes. He mouths the words, Someone is in love with me. He is in the habit of mouthing sentences silently when he wants what he is saying to be true.

  He feels his shorts being tugged down, then his breath catches in his throat, and he is off, off, off. Far away, his parents argue and his sister runs through the wilderness like a woodland creature, a nymph. Each of them in their private spaces, like the sections his mother made of the cabin when they first arrived. Each of them in their own place.

  * * * *

  11. What the Firefly Said

  "So,” said the firefly, “you're looking for a moth."

  The girl nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Actually, it's for my father. He's been searching for over a month."

  "And what does it look like?” the firefly said, floating in front of her face. “You know, a moth is a moth is a moth. But that's just my opinion."

  "This one glows,” she said. “An orangey-pink. It has brown and gold streaks on its back, and also it only comes out at night."

  "Hmm,” said the firefly. “I see. Wait here a moment."

  The firefly flew off. The girl watched it for a while, then lost it among the other greenish blips. She sighed, sat down on the ground beneath a pine tree, picking up a few needles covered in sticky sap.

  "I'm back,” said the firefly, and the girl looked up. It had brought a friend, and they both landed on her lap.

  "I know who you're looking for,” the other firefly said.

  The girl felt a rush of excitement churl in her stomach. Her face flushed with heat. “Really?” she said. “Oh, please, you must help me find it."

  "This moth, though,” the firefly said, “it's a bit of a loner. There are a few of them I know of, but they don't even talk amongst themselves. I don't understand them. You know, we fireflies, we like to have a good time. We like to party.” It chuckled softly and nudged its friend.

  "I'll do anything,” the girl said. “Please, if only it would make my father happier. He looks paler and thinner each time he comes back."

  "Well,” the firefly said. “Let me see what I can make happen. I have a lot of connections. We'll see what turns up."

  "Thank you,” said the girl, “Oh, thank you, thank you."

  The fireflies both floated off. She sat under the tree for a while longer, thinking everything would be good now. Her whole family would be happy for once.

  Then the mother and the father were calling her name, loud, over and over. She saw them coming towards her, running. The mother pulled her up from the ground and said, “I was so worried, so worried.” The father grunted and led them back to the cabin, where the little old man and his new friend were sitting by the campfire.

  "I can't do this anymore,” said the mother. “I can't keep her in one place. She's always wandering off."

  "Just a little longer,” said the father. “I can't go back without it. I've been teaching the same classes to an endless stream of students. I can't go back without this."

  The mother nodded and rubbed her temples. “I know,” she said. “I know."

  Then the little old man told his friend, “This is my sister. Her name is Dawn. She doesn't talk much."

  The little old man's friend stared at her for a moment. His eyes grew wide; he smiled at her. The little old man's friend said, “Your sister's beautiful,” as if he couldn't believe it himself.

  * * * *

  12. Your Sister's Beautiful

  Your sister's beautiful.

  Your sister's beautiful.

  Your sister's beautiful.

  Lying on his cot, staring at the bare rafters of the cabin, imagining Roy hanging by his neck from one of the rafters, his face blue in death, Eliot cannot force Roy's words out of his mind. He's been hearing them over and over since Roy—stupid idiotic trashy no-good thoughtless bastard—said them three nights ago.

  Your sister's beautiful.

  And me? Eliot thinks. What about me? Why couldn't Roy have said the same thing about Eliot, with whom he's much more involved and supposedly loves enough to take to bed? Eliot is thinking, I should kill him. I should be like one of those people on talk shows, or in novels. I should commit a crime of passion that anyone could understand.

  Outside somewhere, Roy is hanging out with Dawn. He's been with Eliot for over a month and never once cared to come up to the cabin until Eliot brought him himself. Now he's come up everyday since that first night, and Eliot has been ignoring him defiantly, walking away when Roy starts to speak, finding opportunities to make Roy feel stupid, talking to his mother about high-minded philosophical things in front of Roy. Even if Eliot himself doesn't understand some of the things that comes out of his mother's mouth, he's been around her long enough to pretend like he knows what he's talking about; he knows enough catch-phrases to get by. Whatever works, he's thinking, to make that jerk go away or feel sorry.

  Eliot notices that everything is strangely quiet, both inside the cabin and out. He sits up in bed and looks out the window. The campfire is a pile of ashes, still glowing orange and red from last night. His mother is nowhere to be seen, and both Roy and Dawn aren't around either. His father, he thinks, is who-knows-where.

  Eliot goes outside and looks around back of the cabin. Nothing but weeds and a few scrub bushes and saplings grow here. He walks to the edge of the woods, to where the trails begin, and starts to worry. Dawn. He hasn't been in a state of mind to watch her, and his mother has proved ineffectual at the task. He mouths the words, My sister is safe and around that tree there, playing with a caterpillar, and then he goes to check.

  Dawn's not behind the tree, and there are no caterpillars in sight. Eliot suddenly clenches his teeth. He hears, somewhere close by, Roy's voice. He can't make out what Roy is saying, but he's talking to someone in that voice of his—the idiotic stupid no-good trashy bastard voice.

  Eliot walks in the direction of the voice. He follows a trail until it narrows and dips down into a ravine. There's the creek where he and Dawn watched crayfish for hours. The way water
moves, the way it sparkles under light, and reflects the things around it, the trees and Eliot's and Dawn's own faces, can entrance Dawn for hours. The creek holds the image of the world on its surface, the trees and clouds and a sun pinned like a jewel on its narrow, rippled neck. Beneath the creek, under the water, is another world, full of crayfish and snakes and fish no bigger than fingers. Eliot wonders if his mother has included something philosophical about the creek in her feminist revision of Walden. He wonders if she's noticed the same things that he notices.

  Roy's voice fades, then reappears, like a trick or a prank, and soon Eliot sees him sitting under a tree with Dawn. Roy's talking to her real sweet. Eliot recognizes that voice. He's playing with Dawn's hand, which she keeps pulling away from him. Roy doesn't know Dawn hates to be touched. The only thing she can stand is a tight embrace, and then she won't ever let go. It's a symptom, her doctor has told the family, of her autism.

  Now Roy is leaning into Dawn, trying to kiss her, and Dawn pulls her head back. She stands up and starts walking towards the creek. Eliot feels his hands clench, becoming fists. Roy stands up and follows Dawn. He walks in front of her and she squeals in his face. A high-pitched banshee squeal. The squeal, Eliot thinks, of death.

  Eliot finds he is running towards them, his fists ready to pummel Roy. He wonders if he can actually do it, he hasn't ever used them before, not like this. Can I do it, he wonders, as Roy turns with a surprised expression on his face.

  Yes, he can.

  His first punch lands on Roy's cheekbone, right under Roy's eye. The second one glances blandly off of Roy's stomach, making Roy double up and expel a gasp of breath. Then Eliot is screaming at the top of his lungs, “Get out! Get the hell out! Get the hell out!” His voice turns hoarser each time he screams, but he keeps screaming anyway. Roy looks up at Eliot with a red mark on his face. It's already darkening into a bruise that Eliot wishes he could take a picture of and frame. He'd like to hang it on his wall and keep it forever. A reminder of his ignorance.

  Roy says, “Whatever. Fucking faggot,” and starts to walk away, back up the trail. When he reaches the top of the ravine and walks over it, he disappears from Eliot's sight, and from Eliot's life, forever.

  Eliot is breathing heavily, ready to hit Roy again. He's a little surprised at how easy it was, that he has a space inside him that harbors violence. At the same time, he's impressed with himself. He's not sure if he should feel afraid or proud of his actions. He's not sure if he has room for both.

  Dawn stands beside him, looking into his face. She's quiet and still for once in her life. She smoothes down the wrinkles in her shorts with the flats of her hands, over and over. He's most likely disturbed her. Or Roy has. Or both of them did. Eliot says, “Come on, let's go back.” He doesn't yell at her or yank her wrist. And Dawn follows him up the trail, out of the ravine, back to the cabin.

  * * * *

  13. The Assignation

  Something woke her late in the night. Tap, tap, tap. Something kept tapping, and so she sat up in bed and looked around her. The mother and father were asleep on their cots, the little old man slept on the other side of the sheet separating them. None of them were tapping.

  Then she heard it again, and looked over her shoulder. In the window square, two fireflies hovered, blinking out a message. Outside. Five minutes.

  The girl quietly got out of her cot and stepped into her sandals. She pulled a piece of hair out of her mouth. Peaking around the corner of the sheet, she watched the little old man for a while, his chest rising and falling in steady rhythms of sleep. Earlier that evening, she and the little old man had sat in their respective corners, on their respective cots, and by the light of a lantern, they had made shadow creatures appear on the sheet separating their rooms. Bats and butterflies, and even a dog's head that could open its mouth and bark. She loved the little old man, and wished she could tell him as much.

  Then she tiptoed out of the cabin, closing the door behind her carefully. The two fireflies were waiting for her by the smoldering campfire.

  "What's the matter?” the girl asked. “Has something happened?"

  The fireflies nodded together. One of them said, “We've found your moth. The one you asked about. Orangey-pink glow, gold and brown streaks on its wings? We found him."

  "Oh, thank you so much,” she told them. “How can I repay you?"

  "Wait,” the fireflies both said. “He isn't here with us. You'll have to wait. He was busy. A real snob, if you want our opinions. But he said he would drop by tomorrow evening. He asked why you wanted to meet him. We said you were a new fixture here, and wanted to meet all the neighbors."

  "That's wonderful,” the girl said, liking the idea of her being a fixture here, of being a part of the natural surroundings.

  She told the fireflies she would be waiting by the campfire the next evening, and that they could bring the moth to her there. “Won't my father be surprised!” she told the fireflies, and they both shrugged, saying, “It's just a moth, I mean really! What's so special about that?"

  You have no idea, she wanted to tell them. But she simply told them thank you, and crept back into the cabin to sleep.

  * * * *

  14. Why Now?

  When Dr. Carroll returned from his latest outing, he looked ready to fold up and die on the spot. Eliot and Dawn hung back in the shadows of the porch, swinging a little, while their mother sat at the campfire with their father and tried her best to comfort him. There was still no moth, he told her, and he was ready to face up to the possibility that this summer has been a total waste, that his memory of something unique that no one else had ever discovered was probably false.

  Eliot decided to make himself and Dawn scarce, so he took her inside the cabin and, lighting a lantern, entertained her with hand shadows thrown against the sheet separating their cots. They fell asleep after a while, and when Eliot wakes the next morning, he finds his mother and father already outside, cooking breakfast over the fire.

  "We're going to leave tomorrow,” Eliot's father tells him, whisking eggs in a stainless steel bowl.

  "Good,” says Eliot, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He yawns, and takes a glass of orange juice his mother offers him. She's been to town already, and has brought back some fresh food and drinks from Mac's. He takes a sip of the orange juice and holds it in his mouth for a moment, savoring the taste.

  "Well, I for one have got a lot of work to do when we get back,” Eliot's mother says. “A whole summer spent camping, and I haven't prepared anything for my fall classes yet."

  Eliot looks at Dawn, who sits on a log on the other side of the fire, eating sausage links with her fingers. He smiles at her, and gives her a wink. Dawn, to his surprise, smiles and winks back.

  The day passes with all of them making preparations to leave the next day. They pack the wagon full of their clothes and camping equipment, and then retire at dusk to the fire, where their faces flush yellow and orange from the flames. All four of them stare at each other, or stare at the last pot of beans cooking on the fire. They're tired, all of them. Puffy gray sacs of flesh hang under their eyes. They are a family, Eliot thinks, of zombies. The walking dead. Faces gray, eyes distant, mouths closed. No one speaks.

  Soon after they're finished eating, Dawn gets up from her seat and wanders away from the fire. But not so far that her mother and father can't see where she has gone. Finally, when the fireflies have come to life, filling the night air with an apple green glow, Eliot spots it, his father's moth, pinwheeling through the air around Dawn, surrounded by an orangey-pink halo.

  "Dad,” he says, “Dad, look.” And Dr. Carroll turns to see where Eliot is pointing. A strange little noise comes out of his mouth. Almost a squeak. He heaves himself off the log he's crouched on, and stumbles towards Dawn and the moth.

  There it is, thinks Eliot. Why now? Why has it decided to make an appearance after all this time, after all this pain? Why now? he wonders, wanting answers that perhaps don't exist. He suspects Dawn ha
s something to do with it, the same way Dawn made the grasshoppers line up together and do synchronized leaps.

  Dr. Carroll shouts, “Keep an eye on it, don't let it get away!” and he rushes to the car to dig through the back for a net or a box. He comes jogging back with a clear plastic box that has a screen fitted into the lid and vents on the sides. A few twigs and leafs wait inside of it. He opens the lid, scoops up the moth, and snaps the box shut.

  But then Dawn is squealing. She runs over to her father and tries to pry the box out of his hands. What is she doing? Eliot can't understand why she'd do a thing like that. She's beating at her father's chest, saying—what?—saying, “No! No! No! You can't lock it up like that!"

  What? Eliot's thinking. He's thinking, What's happening here?

  His mother steps between Dawn and Dr. Carroll, grabbing Dawn around her shoulders to pull her in for a hug. Dawn is sobbing now, her shoulders heaving, and she leans into her mother for the hug, and doesn't let go for fifteen minutes at least. Eliot stays by the fire, afraid of what's going on in front of him. He doesn't know what to do or say.

  Dr. Carroll says, “What's wrong with her? I can't believe she tried to do that."

  Eliot's mother says, “Leave her alone. Just leave her alone, why don't you? Can't you see she's upset?"

  Dr. Carroll walks away from them, holding his box with the moth inside it close to his chest. It glows still. The box lights up like a faery lantern. The smile on his father's face tells Eliot exactly what he is holding. This box, says Eliot's father's smile, contains my youth.