The butterfly stretched its wings up and then lowered them again.
‘There you are! And how are you young lady? Few bumps and…’ the man’s voice disappeared as a slow ringing started in her ears. Callie shook her head to dislodge it and a headache she hadn’t yet noticed worked into her skull like a slowly turning screw. ‘Try not to move too much.’
How Hector had been excited when they caught one in that stupid oversized net. She had been over by the lake (they had their own bloody lake!) trying to skim stones like her father had taught her to do, and then her brother had appeared on the other side of the bank, jumping up and down with a wild craziness, as if he had just sat on an anthill.
‘It’s a Red Admiral, Callie! We got a Red Admiral!’
The butterfly fluttered up (down) and then seemed to jerk across the canvas roof of the tent and settle on a spot about a foot to the left of where it had been. Callie watched it and it was beautiful.
‘Your ankle might feel a bit stiff.’
It was a Red Admiral. She was sure of it.
‘Hello?’
Hector had cried so much when he saw how his friend kept the butterflies. When he was shown the great collection – dozens, maybe even a hundred or more all pinned lifelessly, pointlessly, to a board – he had suddenly broken into great uncontrollable sobs. How she had to comfort him, that stupid brother of hers. Wasn’t that the first time she felt she had really got to know him though? Couldn’t she remember that great gush of love she felt for him in that moment? She could. She always would.
A light shone in her face and more fingers started pushing and prodding, this time at her cheeks, and chin, and ears. When the light moved away and she looked back, the butterfly had gone.
3
Hector was sat astride a makeshift narrow table with a sheet pulled tightly over it. Blarney was sat bolt upright on the other end of the table, staring at him.
‘All right?’ Hector asked him.
‘Yes, I’m fine.’
For one delirious moment Hector had been convinced the reply had come from Blarney. When he saw Tommy entering the tent and approaching the table, a big fat plaster stuck over one eye, he was genuinely disappointed.
‘I was talking to the dog.’
Tommy shrugged and took a seat on a small fold-out chair to one side of the table. Tommy gave Hector’s tent the once over – apart from the table and a small trolley of surgical instruments and lotions and pots of pills, a camp bed that had seen better days was the only other thing there. ‘I see your accommodation isn’t much better. How is everyone?’
‘He says they are going to be okay.’
‘All of them?’
Hector shrugged.
‘Even her?’
Hector yawned and then winced at a pain in his shoulder. ‘Guess so.’
‘And we can trust him on that?’
‘I don’t trust anyone.’
‘You think…’ There were noises coming from outside the tent – voices, whispers, and then Tommy saw a small face peering in. ‘Hello?’ There was a giggle and then the face disappeared.
‘You think it’s gone? Is that what you were going to say? That thing inside her?’
It was Tommy’s turn to shrug. ‘You seen the others?’
‘Yeah. Callie has buggered her ankle, but she will be okay. Mia was next to her…’ Hector was suddenly distracted by movement at the entrance to the tent.
‘What?’
A butterfly had fluttered into the tent and was dancing around in front of Hector’s face. Instinctively he held out a clenched fist before him and then extended the index finger. The butterfly, that beautifully coloured Red Admiral, seemed to float down like a falling feather and then rested gently on Hector’s finger. Hector was transfixed, gazing at this wondrous creature as if it had come to him from another world, another time. The butterfly opened out its wings and then remained still.
‘Stunning,’ Hector whispered. ‘Absolutely stunning. At night time too. Incredible.’
‘Yeah, wonderful,’ Tommy replied with a contemptuous shake of the head.
‘You know, Tommy, when I was young…’
The butterfly suddenly fluttered off Hector’s finger, darted away from Blarney’s silent, half-hearted snap at the air, and then floated up to the roof of the tent before coming to rest again.
‘You know, that great ginger fur ball won’t leave your side?’ Tommy nodded across at Blarney and then leaned back and rested his feet on the table. ‘One of the children tried to offer him a bone and he just turned his head away. Another tried to cuddle him and he just bared his teeth. Didn’t move a muscle. Just kept on staring at you. He’s not got much in the way of social graces. They do say dogs start to resemble their owners. Or is that the other way round?’
‘Why’s he got his eye on me? What have I done?’
‘You don’t remember?’
‘I wasn’t asking just to hear your dulcet tones.’
‘When the truck started to…’ Tommy waved a hand around in the air.
‘Yeah, yeah, I remember all that.’
‘Well you must have grabbed him and shielded him. Word is when they got us out the back you were just lying there holding onto him. Wrapped around him is what the good doctor said. You saved the old mutt’s life.’
Hector met Blarney’s penetrating gaze and then nodded to him. Blarney gently raised his right paw. Hector took it in his right hand and shook it.
The door to the tent suddenly flapped open and the man that had just recently attended to both their wounds stood there pulling off a bloody pair of rubber gloves. He sighed heavily and turned to Hector.
‘Which one of you is Sullivan?’
‘Neither of us.’
‘Any idea where he is? She keeps asking for him. Well, screaming for him would perhaps be more apt.’
‘No. No idea. Sorry.’
‘Never mind. Perhaps you should see her. Both of you, and the dog too. Might calm her when she wakes.’ He stood with his hands on his hips for a moment and stared at the ground, shaking his head. Behind him the butterfly ducked and weaved and fluttered out into the darkness. ‘Strange, so very strange,’ he mumbled and then looked back to Hector with a tired but reassuring smile. ‘Anyway, yes, come talk to her. I think it would be good.’
‘Thank you,’ Hector said, slipping off the table. ‘I haven’t had time yet to thank you for pulling us out of the truck. Thank you for saving our lives.’
‘Yeah,’ Tommy chimed in, ‘thank you. You got a name?’
‘You can call me doctor Jarrow, and you are both more than welcome. Saving people is what we do here.’
4
Sam had said nothing since the crash. From the moment he pulled Albie clear and then called the others – those strangers, those faces in the trees, those people that had appeared as if from thin air – over to the truck to help, he had articulated nothing but grunts and sighs, occasionally punctuating them with wildly waving arms and pointing fingers. Even now, under the fairy lights strung up through the trees, sat in the middle of another wood, with nothing to hear but the calming sounds of night settling, Albie’s boy had said nothing, merely slept deeply. He breathed heavily against his pretend mother’s leg, sprawled out across the mossy ground. His thumb brushed at his lips momentarily and it looked as if he was going to suck it. Albie ran a hand through his hair and settled her back against the tree trunk, staring out over this new world they had suddenly found themselves in.
They were in a clearing in a wood, a small campfire burning away in the middle. Awnings hung suspended across branches, giving them decent shelter from the steady plop-plop of the rain. Seemingly endless twinkling lights were dotted around the trees that fenced them in; some were wrapped around the trunks, others poked out from the leaves like sparkling drops of dew. She counted three large tents, and two vehicles – an old, beat up hatchback and a similarly cared for ambulance. There was music coming from somewhere – surely one of the tents; a sof
t and calming tune like a lullaby, marred only slightly by the steady purr of a generator coming from another place unseen. She could see people walking between the trees – Hector and Tommy being led by doctor Jarrow from one tent to another, and then there were more bodies moving out of the shadows, into the light of the clearing; a man, and then two women followed by two children, all crossing the bare ground, nodding to her and then sitting cross-legged in front of the campfire. Next to her Sam shifted in his sleep and seemed to be trying to brush something from his leg. Looking down, Albie saw a butterfly perched on his left thigh.
There was a sudden movement to her right. A man was walking out from between the trees, standing to her side and silently offering a small metal tray of food – something unidentifiable, some light brown mound of mush with a square chunk of bread that looked as strong as a brick. Albie shook her head slowly. The man moved the tray towards her again and nodded. His bare arms were skeletal, creamy sticks, with deep blue rivers of veins, winding just under a skin that looked as sturdy as tissue paper. An old bandage on his wrist, darkened and stained, pulled apart a fraction as he moved, and a small blob of pus trickled out. The man’s face, coloured by the slowly shifting glow of the fire, was a ghostly apparition, a face you saw in gloomy attics and under beds when you are young and alone and afraid. Eyes, that looked glued on, stared through her, stuck carelessly to a skull that seemed too big for his neck. Albie shook her head again and gently pushed the tray away.
‘Thank you, but I’m not hungry just now. Maybe later, when my boy wakes up. He will be hungry, I’m sure. We can eat then. Thank you.’
‘You look familiar,’ the man said quietly, barely above a whisper. ‘Do I know you?’
Albie tensed and then shook her head. The smile she gave the man was well practiced and convincing. ‘No. No I doubt that.’
The man said no more, merely turned slowly away from her and shuffled back into the trees. Sam moved again under her protective arm, a sudden jerk, and then his breathing got heavier. She wanted to stir him from whatever horrible dream was creeping through his subconscious. She wanted him to wake up in her loving embrace and to know that everything was okay and that he was safe. She wanted him to be young enough to believe adult lies.
Albie watched the butterfly flutter off Sam’s thigh, dance around the air in front of her face, and then climb up into the night sky, losing it between the lights that now felt like precious twinkling stars.
5
The tent where Mia and Callie where recovering from their injuries was just as empty as the one Hector had found himself in, here two tables were set side by side, with a small tray of medical paraphernalia on top of a trolley in between. There was nothing else in the tent except for a tall, cylindrical shaped object at the back, covered by a sheet. The tent was lit by yet more fairy lights, these though seemed to have been set to flash on and off at intervals, and gave the small space a slightly disorientating effect.
Jarrow led them in. Callie was sat up on her table, her hands gently resting on the top of her head as if she were trying to force the headache back through her body. She took a hug from her brother eagerly, pulling him to her, her fingers curling her hands into fists and gripping at the back of his jacket.
‘You okay, sis?’ Hector asked, with a lightness born from intense relief. Callie said nothing, but her ever-tightening hug was enough of an answer. ‘Yeah, okay, not so tight, Callie. Got enough bruises already.’ Callie planted a wet kiss on his cheek and then shoved him away with a dramatic swish of the arms. They shared a smile and a laugh and then Callie returned her hands to her head, running fingers through her curls before lying back down on the table.
Tommy stood beside Mia, with Jarrow now at his shoulder. Blarney was at the other side of the table, his head raised up as he sniffed at his master. Mia was still deep in a dream that didn’t want to let her go free. Her right arm was bandaged tightly all the way to her shoulder. The index finger on her right hand was covered in bandages too over what seemed to be a makeshift splint.
‘Best I could do,’ Jarrow said, noticing Tommy staring at her arm. ‘We are down to the bare bones. She’s had some painkillers but she really needs to rest. This girl has been through it.’
‘You have no idea,’ Tommy said. ‘Did you…’ Tommy brushed off the patently ridiculous line of questioning he had been about to embark on. He was going to ask Jarrow if there had been anything else he had found. Something beyond her injuries. Had he, y’know, found that she was talking in some deep, growling voice that clearly didn’t belong to her, or did he have any indication whilst he was poking and prodding and securing and bandaging that, well, that maybe she might be possessed by some insane lunatic, or something…yeah, that sort of thing, anything like that, doc? Tommy smiled darkly to himself. ‘Nothing. Forget it.’
Hector was gazing at Mia from the other side of the table. The two met each other’s stare briefly, asked the same question of each other silently, and then both looked away. From the floor came a growl and then Blarney was off, swaggering out of the tent as if he had seen enough and had more important things to do.
‘Sullivan…he needs to be saved…don’t you…’ Mia mumbled, and it most definitely was Mia – her voice, her dream. ‘Sullivan…’ She said the name over and over and then her left hand shot out and grabbed Hector’s right.
‘Who is this Sullivan? One of your group?’ Jarrow asked.
‘Someone she knew,’ Tommy said, his own thoughts turning to his father, to the stories he had been told, and to Bleeker Hill, the place Frankie Bergan had never returned from. ‘A nobody. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Seems to matter to her.’
Mia’s hand gripped Hector’s tightly and Tommy could see it was beginning to hurt him. Still she repeated Sullivan’s name and then something else – ‘The Wash. The Wash.’
Jarrow stepped away from the table and cleared his throat. ‘Something to eat I think, you must be famished?’ Jarrow’s sudden change of conversation wasn’t lost on Tommy, nor too was the scrunched up look of disgust on his face. ‘The girls can rest up whilst we eat. It’s not exactly gourmet…in fact it’s positively repulsive, but…’
Hector suddenly screamed from the other side of the table. Mia was sitting up slowly, her left hand crushing Hector’s right with an unrelenting strength. Her eyes opened and they were alert and alive. They saw Callie on the next table, pulling herself up timidly whilst holding her exploding bomb of a head, and then they saw Hector sinking pathetically to the floor between them and she released her grip quickly and then absently patted his wild and crazy hair in a passing apology. She looked to her bandaged right arm and then held her right hand up before her and tried to waggle the index finger. She looked up to the roof of the tent, searching, it seemed, for something that wasn’t there. Finally she saw Tommy and found a smile on her face. ‘Hey there, Tommy Bergan.’
‘Erm, yeah…hello?’
‘Where are we?’
‘Hello, Mia. My name is doctor Jarrow and this is my community.’
‘They saved us…’ Tommy said from her side. ‘You remember…’
‘You save people here do you, doctor Jarrow?’
‘Yes, Mia,’ Jarrow replied with a slightly pompous pride. ‘We save people, that’s what we do here.’
The smile sagged slightly on Mia’s face but she nodded and then slid delicately from the table.
At the back of the tent, unseen by all, the covered cylindrical object shifted slightly, the sheet wafting out gently before settling back over the curved contours of metal bars.
THE COMMUNITY
1
Leaving Callie in the tent to rest her blooming headache, they all stepped out into the clearing, Jarrow leading them along the small pathway between the tent and the ambulance and towards the makeshift comfort of the crackling campfire.
The faces turned to them as they approached, all gazing up at Jarrow with a happy emptiness. He held his arms out as he walked, as if he
were about to cuddle the whole clearing, sweep them all up and squeeze them close to him. As it was he merely ushered Hector and Tommy forward and motioned for them to sit. Mia had hung back, moving from the path and across the mossy floor to where Albie, Sam and now Blarney were settled, under one of the awnings.
As Hector and Tommy made their awkward greetings at the campfire and Jarrow took a seat astride a wide tree stump – a domineering patriarch looking over his brood from the head of the table, was how Mia saw it – she delicately, cautiously approached Albie and sat cross-legged on the ground next to her. She knew Albie could see the shame in her face, that there was no hiding the way she was feeling at that moment. She looked down at Blarney, her ever-faithful friend, his snout resting across Albie’s leg, and she suddenly felt like she didn’t belong. That maybe she had never belonged. She was only as real as someone else’s bad dream, and just as welcome as well.
‘It’s okay,’ Albie told Mia, her focus at those gathered around the campfire, ‘really, don’t…’ She could sense Mia was about to splutter a teary eyed barrage of apology and regret. It was all said. It was done. ‘I know what you are going to say. I know what you need to say, Mia. But there’s no need. We are where we are.’
‘Wherever the hell that is,’ Mia replied, gazing around the clearing with a sense of unease. ‘You trust these people?’
‘They got us out of the truck. Seem to have patched you up pretty well. When you think about who could have found us, I’d say it was good fortune it was these people instead. I don’t see any weapons. I don’t see any members of The Party. All in all I would say we owe them and we should be thankful. Wouldn’t you?’
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