The Black Butterfly

by Shirley Reva Vernick

  George pulled over a chair from the next table and motioned Iris to sit next to him.

  “You look terrific, sweetie,” she said. “Fill me in.”

  They leaned in until their noses were almost touching. They looked like one person bent toward a mirror, admiring the reflection. It dawned on me then that maybe Iris was the one who’d given George his crescent moon pendant. How could I have been so stupid? How had I ever dared to think that George was attracted to me? God, I’d actually thought this was a date. That he was intrigued by my short story because he was intrigued by me. That he had romantic designs when he offered to cook for me. I’m such an idiot.

  I pushed my chair back a few inches. It squeaked against the floor, but they didn’t notice. “Powder room,” I said, standing up.

  By the time I made it to the bathroom, tears were spattering my cheeks. This was ridiculous. It wasn’t like George was my boyfriend. I’d only known him for a couple of days, for God’s sake. What was there to be so unhinged over? In a week and a half, I’d be done with this hellhole anyway, and I could return to my reclusive outcast existence in Cambridge. Who needed this crap?

  I let myself cry for a minute. As I splashed cold water on my face, Mrs. Walker the Talker came in, so I quickly blew my nose and left. There was no way I was going to let George and Iris see me this way, so I bolted to the book nook.

  I had to force myself not to gawk at the lovebirds. I was dying to know if they were touching hands, making plans, making googly eyes at each other. Instead, I read Field and Stream and Woodworking magazines, counted the books, eavesdropped on Xandros the lawyer and Thaddeus the hardware man. When I was positive the tears were in check, I considered going back to the table, but what was the point? I couldn’t compete with someone like Iris. Besides, I didn’t have the guts to stake my claim. Not that I had a rightful claim, but even if I did, the I-adore-you-Iris look on George’s face was all I needed to stop me in my tracks.

  Thirty agonizing minutes passed. Then George was standing beside me, holding my purse, which I’d left on my chair. “You okay?” he asked.

  “Um, yeah—sorry,” I said, taking my purse and feeling my cheeks burn. “I felt a little queasy all of a sudden, and I didn’t want to go back near the food.”

  “The deadly French onion soup, huh? Let me get you home. You feel like you can make it to the car?”

  “Uh huh.” I walked quickly to the door, and he had to jog a few steps to catch up.

  As we crunched along the snow-packed parking lot, he slipped his arm around mine, but I pretended to need to cough and pulled my arm away. When we got to the van, he opened the door for me, and I fell into my seat, avoiding his eyes.

  “Is…anything else the matter?” he asked.

  “No, nothing’s wrong. I’ll be fine.” The truth, of course, was that something was very wrong—with me. Why else would George have no interest in me? Apparently, I wasn’t that kind of girl. I wasn’t girlfriend material.

  He stood there with his hand on the open door. The wind picked up, and it lifted the hair off of his face. His eyes reflected something, only I couldn’t tell whether it was concern or annoyance. “You sure?” he asked.

  “Positive. Come on, let’s go. I’m getting cold.”

  He shut my door and ran around to his side. We drove out of the parking lot and onto the road.

  “So,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant, “is Iris an islander?”

  “We grew up together.”

  Wonderful—she had history and looks on me. “You stay in touch, that’s nice.”

  “Yeah, over the holidays and the summers. We’re pretty close.”

  “It seemed that way.” Ouch, did that come out snide?

  He looked at me curiously. “Anyway, she’s leaving town before Christmas for a family reunion, so I’m glad I bumped into her today.”

  I faked a groan and leaned my head back on the headrest. “I’m just gonna close my eyes for a minute.”

  “Penny,” he said, his voice insistent now, maybe even a little sharp. “What’s going on?”

  That’s exactly what I wanted to know. I said nothing.

  “Is this really about one spoonful of half-assed soup? Or…”

  I groaned again, clutching my belly this time, and we drove the rest of the way to the inn without talking.

  All hope abandon, ye who enter here!

  —Dante, The Divine Comedy

  In the time we were gone, Vincent had made an enormous Christmas tree materialize in the parlor corner, ready for decorating, and now he was outside hanging wreaths on the doors and windows. The tree was tall and fat, a gorgeous shade of navy green, and Bubbles was draped on a chair nearby, surveying box after box of sparkly ornaments. If I’d been in a good or even a tolerable mood, I’d have thought it a cozy scene, but I wasn’t.

  “There you are,” sang Bubbles as we tramped into the parlor. “It’s time for my favorite holiday tradition. Actually, it’s past time—I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Sorry,” said George. “We…I ran into Iris.”

  At the sound of this name, Bubbles sat up. “She’s home? How is the dear?”

  Make your exit now, I told myself. Don’t give George the satisfaction of knowing you’re invested in his answer. Invested? Try dying to know. But my feet were concrete.

  “She’s great,” George said, glancing sideways at me. “I hope it’s okay—I invited her to trim the tree with us.”

  “Lovely,” Bubbles clucked. “The more the merrier. It’s a party, after all.”

  “Excuse me,” I said, but before I could decide whether to head to my room or the kitchen, Bubbles was making her pitch.

  “Penny,” she said, looking aghast, “surely you’ll join us. We’ll hang decorations, sip Rita’s famous mulled cider, sing along to Burl Ives. Look, look here.” She pulled some glass snowflakes out of their tissue paper wrapping. “These are my latest additions. Aren’t they exquisite? And isn’t this tree the most enchanting thing you’ve ever laid eyes on?”

  Mom and I have one of those fake white trees, the tabletop edition, which we trim with a few pinecones, plain and simple (except for that one year when we also strung up the doughnut holes Gigi brought us. The cockroaches put an end to that idea the very next morning). Mom and I might be setting up our little tree right now, if we were at home where we belonged.

  “Thanks so much, Bubbles,” I said, “but I’m nursing a doozy of a headache right now.” Damn! I’d told George it was my belly, and now I was claiming it was my head. How transparent could I be? “You go ahead without me.”

  “Oh, you poor thing,” she said, wilting back into her chair. “George shouldn’t have dragged you out in the cold with only that bit of a jacket on. Can I get you some Echinacea? It always works for what ails us.”

  “No, I’ll be fine, really. I just need…I think a hot cup of coffee is what I need.”

  “George, make her a pot,” she said. “After all, this is your doing.”

  “No, really,” I said. “I’m just going to reheat this morning’s pot, if it’s still there. It’ll be fine.” I’ll be miserable, but the coffee will be fine. With my eyes trained on the floor, I practically ran to the kitchen.

  “Try it this way,” Rita said, moving my fingers down to the base of the artichoke. I’d been trying to get the hang of it for twenty minutes, but my hands weren’t cooperating. As the sunlight glinted off my paring knife, I heard Burl Ives crooning “Silver Bells” from the parlor, and I knew George and his “friend” Iris were having a holly jolly time tossing back cider and throwing tinsel. Rita reached over and, like magic, extracted the booty from my artichoke. I didn’t even realize I’d stopped working.

  “Did you have to study cooking forever to get this good?” I asked.

  “No,” she said, mixing some kind of marinade. “School was just the beginning. The rest of it, the real learning, was on the job. Some of the best days of my life were spent toiling in hot kitchens for overly d
emanding chefs.” She ground fresh pepper into the marinade. “Mostly in Montreal, but I did have a stint on Nantucket Island right before coming here.”

  I stopped pretending I was making any progress with the artichokes and pushed them away. “You gave up Nantucket for Islemorow? That’s like giving up Hawaii for Coney Island.”

  “Not for me. It was just what I wanted—my own kitchen, my own menu, my bedroom just across the hall. But you are the one who is supposed to tell a story. Come now, about last night.”

  “Last night?” Damn, how could I talk about George without revealing my wounds? As a stalling tactic, I picked up my knife and attacked another innocent artichoke. After cutting off the stem, I plucked the layers of green and yellow leaves, scooped out the fuzzy stuff inside, and cut off the tough skin. Rita told me I was doing fine, and then—voilà—the heart appeared. The elusive heart. “Hey, I did it.”

  Rita took the nugget I’d worked so hard to find and handed me another artichoke. “You have learned something important here.”

  “How to disembowel a vegetable?”

  “Remember when we made the pain d’amandes dough. It made you think you liked to cook, yes?”

  I nodded.

  “Then when it came to the harder things,” she held up an artichoke, “you thought it was pain in the ass, yes?”

  I blushed.

  “Here is the thing then,” she said. “You cannot tell if cooking is really for you when you only make what is sweet and easy. You have to take on all of it, even the damn stinking artichokes. Then if you still want to cook, you know you must love it. Do you see what I am saying?”

  I ruffled the artichoke leaves that were scattered on the butcher block. Rita was saying more than she was saying, that much I saw.

  “It is all right,” she said. “I can see you do not wish to talk now. You think it over. Maybe we will chat later.”

  “No, Rita, I do want to talk, really.” This wasn’t the truth, of course. I had no desire to discuss George, but I most definitely didn’t want to get kicked out my safe place. “Let’s—”

  “I must start the meat now,” she said, and I knew I was being dismissed.

  My hand caught on a fistful of artichoke leaves. To get to my room, I’d have to walk through the parlor, where the party was in full swing. Maybe I’d hang out in the study until the shindig finished up. But who knew how long that would be?

  “Are you all right, Penny?” Rita asked.

  I turned my head bleakly toward the door. “I’m just not feeling like a party right now.”

  Rita eyed the door, me, and the door again. “Come.” She walked over to the corner nearest the fridge and pushed the potted plant away from the wall, revealing a small door, maybe three feet high.

  “This is the crawlspace I told you about,” she explained, unlocking the latch. “The staircase inside leads to the broom closet on the second floor, a few doors down from your room.”

  Theoretically, this was a godsend. Realistically, it was the place where Mom had sensed something strange and where George had gotten hurt, hardly an attractive alternative to walking through the George and Iris lovefest. “Rita, I don’t know.”

  She looked perplexed for a second, but it didn’t take her long to catch on. “You do not think there is a goblin inside, do you?”

  “No, of course not.” There was no backing out of this now. “Just let me get my stuff.” I retrieved my jacket and purse from the stool and returned to her side. “It’s dark in there,” I stated the obvious.

  “I will keep the door open so you get some light. It will be fine.”

  It didn’t feel fine. It felt like driving against traffic or ignoring a Beware of Killer Dog sign. But Rita was urging me on, and I really did hate the idea of walking through the party room. I took my first reluctant step inside, feeling suddenly far away from the shelter of Rita’s kitchen. This was another world, a world between worlds, and I didn’t belong in it.

  “What about supper?” Rita asked. “The party could go on for hours.”

  The steps were squeaky, and I pretended not to hear her. I was too preoccupied with the concept of sneaking through an indoor cave to a bedroom that wasn’t mine, to avoid a guy who wasn’t mine, all because—well, I couldn’t remember exactly why, and that made my head hurt, plus I felt spider webs on the back of my neck.

  I forced myself to start climbing, slowly, warily, clinging tightly to the handrail. After a few uneventful steps, I kinda sorta relaxed, loosening my grip on the rail, quickening my pace. A hard shove on the door at the top and I tumbled into a closet filled with cleaning supplies and the smell of Pine-Sol.

  Something unknown is doing we don’t know what.

  —Sir Arthur Eddington on the Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics, 1927

  I barely got out of the broom closet and into the hallway when the Foxglove Room’s door opened and Blue emerged, a smile brightening his bronze face, something round and wooden propped under one arm. “Blue, hi.”

  “I was just going to stop by.”

  “Perfect timing,” I said, digging out my room key. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

  We walked to my room and went inside. As we settled onto one of the loveseats, he set down what I now saw was a drum. “Is everything okay?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I want you to tell me who your friend is.”

  He opened his mouth, closed it, crossed his ankles, uncrossed them, and finally said, “So you’ve met.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”

  “Starla doesn’t like people. I thought she’d steer clear.”

  “Well, she didn’t. You should’ve told me you had a girlfriend.”

  “Girlfriend?” he almost laughed. “She is most definitely not my girlfriend.”

  “Did she die in the fire?”

  “No, she came here in the 1990s. Just showed up and never left.”

  “Not in any rush to cross over either then?”

  “Something about wanting to wait for someone. She never really explained. And then it was too late.”

  Too late. So the cosmos enforced a deadline on crossing over?

  Blue must have seen the confusion on my face, because he went on, “It has to do with her remains.”

  “You mean, her corpse?”

  “Corpse, bones, ashes, a fingernail would probably do. Anything that remains of the body.”

  I nodded.

  “The thing is,” he said, “you can’t cross over unless you’re with some part of your remains. Your body is like a…a springboard, I guess you’d say. And while Starla was waiting for whoever she was waiting for, her ashes got scattered.”

  “Where?”

  “That’s the point. She doesn’t know. The ocean maybe. Nowhere nearby, that’s certain, or she’d feel it. That’s one thing we ghosts have going for us. If our remains are in range, we know it.”

  “So she’s stranded.” God, how awful to be in limbo like that. To have died so young in the first place. “Is that forever?”

  He shrugged. “She claims she’ll never lose hope.”

  “No wonder she’s clinging to you.”

  He let out a tense sigh.

  “She loves you, you know.”

  Blue rearranged himself uneasily on the loveseat. “Actually, I think…well, I guess she could…what I mean is…look, can we talk about something else?”

  “Okay, all right…let’s, um, let’s talk about your drum.”

  His whole face relaxed at that, and he lifted the hand drum onto his lap. “I found this on the beach a long time ago, forgotten or maybe abandoned. It’s the only thing I’ve ever taken. It’s the only thing I keep.” He ran his fingers along the leather top and the wooden hoop, which was accented with small feathers. “I use it for journeying. The beat, you know. I thought we might, I thought I could show you. You said you’d like to know more.”

  “Uh, oh.”

  “Don’t you trust me?” he asked, his voice part
ly Teasing Guy, partly Hurt Little Boy.

  “I, um, hmm.” Oh, what the hell. Maybe this journeying thing would help me understand what was going on around here. “Yes, I trust you. What do I need to do?”

  “Close your eyes.”

  I did.

  “Now calm yourself. Breathe. Try not to be thinking a thousand thoughts. Try not to think any thoughts.”

  “Impossible.” At this point, I realized he was lightly tapping his drum, barely audibly, as if he were using a feather to strike it.

  “That’s okay, just try.” He beat the drum a little louder, but still softly, a slow, steady pulse.

  I listened to the rhythm. I took in a sudden salt air fragrance. I gave the not-thinking thing a try, but the thoughts came anyway, thoughts about ghosts, George, my mother.

  And then I was gone. One minute I was sitting cross-legged on the loveseat, listening to Blue’s hand against the drum, and the next minute I was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere dark and misty, tunnel-like and cold. I had the sensation of moving, but my feet weren’t touching the ground. The thrumming of the drum was distant now. Was I dreaming? Hallucinating? Hypnotized? I wanted to call to the end of the tunnel in hopes that Blue was waiting there for me, but nothing came out of my mouth.

  Suddenly, everything changed. The mist cleared, the darkness faded, the motion halted. I was under a bright—no, a searing—sun and a piercing blue sky, standing in a grassy, jungly place overlooking a crystal sea. There were a couple dozen kids—spring break types—walking around, poking their heads into what looked like cave openings. On a hill in the distance I saw an ancient stone structure, something that might once have been a temple or maybe a king’s palace.

  This can’t be happening, I told myself. You must have fallen asleep there on the loveseat. But no, dreams were never this vivid. I could see every blade of grass, every twig and pebble underfoot. I could hear the individual notes of birds calling in the trees, smell the sunscreen on the tourists, feel the whoosh of the sea breeze.

  Three of the spring breakers—two girls and a guy—wandered away from the others. They turned a corner around some rocks, out of sight of their group. They didn’t seem to notice me, even though I was walking right next to them.