All the Butterflies in the World

by Rodney Jones

  All the Butterflies in the World

  Copyright © 2014 by Rodney Jones. All rights reserved.

  First EPUB Edition: October 2014

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  Cover and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics

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

  To my sister, Cindy Phillips

  Thank you for believing in me.

  chapter one

  Tess

  My third day without a car—I could hardly stand another minute of being cooped up in that stupid house on that stupid mountainside a million miles from civilization. Thank God for the stupid buses.

  With only eighteen minutes to get from the house to the bus stop, I hurried to the front door. Then, I hesitated, scanning my mind for that one inevitably forgotten thing. The dishes were done and put away, the floor swept, the countertops and table wiped, patio doors and windows locked, my cell phone charged and in my daypack, the key…

  I worked my hand into my right front jeans pocket then the other side. “The key. The friggin’ key.”

  I went back through the house, retracing my footsteps: the coffee table, dining table, the kitchen, the bathroom, my bedroom.

  “Ah…” My key—which I normally kept on my keychain, but that my mom happened to have, along with my car—was on top of the dresser, blending in with the other crap up there. So with the key in hand and only fifteen minutes left, I backed out the front door and locked it.

  “Tess?”

  I jumped, spun around, and let out a gasp. The key slipped from my fingers, hit the steps, then bounced. Tink. I didn’t see where it went. Some weirdo—with a capital W—was standing in the middle of the yard, a mere twenty feet away. He stared at me like a zombie coming off a fast. I turned back to the door and twisted and tugged on the handle.

  “Tess?”

  Again, I jumped. I could feel his eyes on my back. I glanced toward the woods at my left. Run? There was at least fifty feet between me and the first tree. No, don’t run. I swung around to confront the guy, my heart beating to keep up with my indecision.

  He stammered, “You… you’re…” He tilted his scruffy head to the side and squinted.

  The guy had a singed look about him, as if he’d spent most of his life dancing naked around a bonfire and howling at the moon. I tried matching his stare with something more intimidating, but I didn’t know if he even noticed.

  His eyes shifted from one side of the steps to the other as though he was evaluating my potential escape routes. “You’re—”

  “Who are you?” I barked.

  He jumped like a kid holding a jack-in-the-box that had just popped. I kept up what I hoped was a cold, steady killer stare, which to my surprise, proved effective. From his expression, one would have thought I’d sprouted horns and fangs.

  The sleeves of his dirty, cream-colored shirt—an odd, buttoned-up thing with no collar—were rolled up to his elbows. His bulky, cotton duck pants were held up by a pair of goofy-looking suspenders, which appeared a size too large for him.

  He scrunched up his face, his mouth hanging open. He took a step forward, leaned toward me, and squinted. “Tess?”

  His tone of voice and the way he stared at me… he acted as if he knew me but hadn’t seen me in years. I searched my mind, but I couldn’t think of anyone I had ever met who looked like him.

  “Don’t come any closer,” I said. “I’ll scream like you’ve never heard screaming.”

  He straightened as though I had just slapped him.

  “What do you want?” I kept an intermittent eye on him while scanning the steps and the sidewalk for my key.

  “I… how did you…?” He slowly shook his head, seeming as confused as a tofu burger.

  “What? How did I what?”

  “Uh, you really don’t recognize me?” His light brown hair looked as if it’d not been washed in a week, and he had the worst haircut imaginable—hack job would be more accurate.

  “I should know you?” I figured if he was going to attack, he would’ve already, but even so, I wasn’t ready to let down my guard.

  “I don’t understand. How’d you…?” His features contorted as he struggled to piece together a complete sentence. “How’d you get here?”

  “What? I don’t know you.” I didn’t, but I studied his face anyway. If it wasn’t for the crappy haircut, he wouldn’t have been bad looking. For one thing, he had nice eyes, friendly eyes. The crow’s feet at their outside corners attested to that. “I don’t… should I?” I glanced down to my right, into the petunias bordering the steps, and then looked back at the weirdo.

  He stared at the flowers, then his hand flew up to his mouth. “My God.” His attention shifted back to me.

  “Stay where you are,” I said.

  “What day is it?”

  “What?”

  “The date. Please.”

  I peered into his eyes, noticing for the first time that they were brown, or maybe hazel, like my own. The “crazy” I thought I saw in them before had morphed into hopeful pleading. “Uh… the twenty-third?”

  “July?”

  “Huh?”

  “The month of July?”

  “Duh, well, yeah.”

  His eyes shifted about as if in pursuit of an escaped thought. “My Lord.”

  While he was distracted by his spiritual revelations or whatever, I gave the area around the steps another quick search. That key could’ve fallen anywhere—the grass, the weeds, the flowers. I’d totally missed the bus, and I had this to deal with: being locked out with a fashion-impaired yeti.

  “All right, all right, okay…” The corners of his lips curled upward.

  I threw up my hands. “What the hell is this?”

  “That key you’re looking for”—he pointed toward the petunias, about two feet from the bottom step—“it’s right there. If you’d like, I’ll move back a little while you get it.” He took an exaggerated step back. “My name’s John Bartley.” His smile spread from his lips, up through his cheeks, and into his eyes—an innocent, almost goofy smile. A real smile.

  I sidled down into the flowers, keeping an eye on him as I did. His boyish features made it difficult to pinpoint his age—between eighteen and twenty-two was the best I could do. I found the key where he said it’d be, grabbed it, then hopped back up onto the porch. I again considered his clothes. I’d never seen anything so sad. I was sure they were homemade. His pants had grass stains on the knees, and a chip of bark clung to one leg.

  And just like that, something within
me softened. “Are you homeless?”

  His eyes lost their focus, and the smile left his lips, as though he’d just discovered a dent in his car door. “Yeah.” He turned toward the mountain, off to his right. “I reckon I am.”

  chapter two

  John

  I had naturally assumed that time travel would be like any other kind of travel, everything neat and linear, point C arriving after point B, and point B after A. But after all I’d been through, I decided maybe it was time to loosen my grip on reason.

  Glancing at the mountain, in the direction of Greendale—or rather the direction it once was—then back at Tess’s perplexed face, I could only marvel at the miracle I’d been granted. I could never have imagined anything so incredible, so perfect. The painful anguish, as if all the darkness and ugliness had been lifted away, revealing a fresh, glowing promise. I looked down at the petunias on either side of the steps. Among them were stray sprigs of grass, a few spent dandelions, and a bushy burdock, exactly as I remembered seeing my first time there, though the flowers impressed me as being a tad livelier than what I recalled. And the sunlight creating a halo in the loose red hairs around Tess’s face was conspicuous as well. The suffering of the past hours was nothing but a memory, which I had no interest in entertaining.

  Tess scowled. “What? What’s so funny?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Nothing, I reckon. I just feel like smiling is all.” I had an intense desire to throw my arms around her and hold her close, keep her near and safe for the rest of time.

  “Well, smile a little less,” she said. “It’s creepy.”

  “Oh.” I forced a frown.

  She tilted her head to the side, shifted her jaw, and wrinkled her brow in the exact same way she’d done before. “So how do you know my name?”

  “Your name…” I nodded as I searched for an answer. “Tess.” The suspicion in her eyes was evident even before the lie, or half-truth, left my lips. “You look remarkably like this gal I used to know. Crazy as it sounds, her name was Tess, too.”

  “Oh?” She gave me a hard squint as though it might shake a confession from me. “And this ‘gal’ lived in Wallingford?”

  I shook my head and parted my lips in a show of incredulous awe. “Simply amazing, isn’t it?”

  “Right. And what’s the big deal about the twenty-third? Was it you and your gal-friend’s anniversary or something?”

  “What? Oh. No, I thought it was…” I couldn’t even get halfway there. “I don’t know what I thought, really. The day? I’m just thankful it’s not. I mean, I’m glad it’s July.”

  She cocked her head to the left, her jaw to the right, and then, with one eye squeezed shut, she squinted at me with the other.

  “The twenty-third,” I added.

  “Yeah, right, thank God it’s the twenty-third… finally. But… um…” Her eyes drifted down to my shoes then darted back up to my face. “You were coming to my door”—she hitched a thumb over her shoulder—“weren’t you? Is there a purpose behind your visit? I mean, other than scaring the holy crap out of me?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” I’d had a reason for being there, but since it was the twenty-third of July—rather than a later date, as I’d assumed—that reason had become miraculously irrelevant. I slipped my hand into my pocket, expecting to find a coin, or perhaps a spare reason, but it was empty. All my money was in the little wooden box, which I’d left lying at the base of the maple tree on the other side of the road. I considered going after it, but thinking of all the questions it and its contents would likely arouse, I changed my mind. I needed time to think. “I couldn’t maybe have a glass of water, could I?”

  “Really? That’s why you’re here? A glass of water?”

  “Well, no, not entirely. But if you could—with ice in it—I’d sure appreciate it.”

  Tess hesitated as though trying to decide whether I was worth a kindness, then she said, “We have Coke, if you’d rather have that.”

  “Oh?” I brought a hand to my chin in an effort to hold back a smile. I’d half-expected she’d offer the Coke and had been kind of hoping she would. “If it ain’t too much trouble.”

  She smiled, shook her head, then disappeared into the house. I sat on the edge of the porch, recalling the last time I’d been there and how confused I had been by everything. There I was, being given a second chance, though it seemed to bear a small price: the challenge of winning her heart again.

  Tess stepped back out onto the porch, a glass of the sweet, bubbly, coffee-colored drink in each hand. She handed one to me then took a seat a few feet away—one big déjà vu. Tess McKinnon was as alive and as smart-mouthed as ever, and I was once again doing my darnedest not to ogle her. What I wouldn’t have given just then to be able to study her face, particularly her eyes. That pair of multicolored jewels was like two butterflies, oceans and sky—amber, blue, and green. And for whatever reason, the unusual way they hooked down at the inside corners thrilled me.

  Feeling another grin breaking out, I quickly took a sip of the Coke drink. Then I held out the glass and watched the bubbles rise, like the feeling of contentment rising within me.

  “Oh.” Tess dug into the front pocket of her britches and pulled out her cell device. “Nicole. I almost forgot.” She flipped it open and began tapping the tiny numbered nubs. She then lifted the thing to the side of her head, burying it in her satiny red hair. “Sorry. It’ll just take a—Nicole? Hey, I’m not going to make it. I missed the—”

  “The bus,” I quietly said.

  She glanced at me then finished, “The bus. Anyway, another time. I’m kind of with someone right now.” She looked down toward her white China shoes. “Some guy—no. No.” She brushed an ant from her pant-leg. “Uh, Jesus, Nicole, no.” She gazed off toward the road and blinked. “Well, I don’t know him.” She glanced at me. “We just met. I don’t even—” She raised her left hand and inspected her fingernails. “Right. Anyway, I’ll call you later. Okay? Bye. Okay. I will. Bye.” She clapped the gadget shut and returned it to her pocket.

  “I made you miss your bus again.”

  “Again?” Her brow bunched up.

  “Well, I just meant… I figured—”

  “What makes you think I was going to take the bus? I have a car. And Nicole lives just down the road. I could have walked. You don’t know.”

  But I did know that she was going to Rutland, and it would take a good part of the day to walk the distance. I shrugged. “Just guessed.”

  “Bullshit. You just guessed my name, too?”

  I drew in a breath. Her cussing used to rub me, but at the moment, there wasn’t room for that. My mind was all taken up by wonder and charm. And who was I to judge, anyhow, since it was her world, not mine? Though I hoped to make it mine, or rather, ours.

  Her eyes drilled into me. “I’ve seen you somewhere.”

  “Have you?”

  “Where’re you from, John… Berkley?”

  “Bartley.” I looked toward what used to be my home. “I was born down by Chester, if that counts for anywhere. I’m pretty much just traveling around, now.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.” That was kind of true. But feeling she deserved more, I added, “Around here. The mountains, mostly.”

  “You smell like you just crawled out of a fire.”

  “Pardon?”

  She waved a hand in front of her face. “Smoke.”

  The fire. I had hoped that the rain from the morning before would have washed away the odor. “Oh. All I could find for wood last night was some half-rotted birch. Made more smoke than fire.”

  She gestured toward the trees on the other side of the road. “So what do you eat out there?”

  I didn’t have a gun or fishing pole. The night I’d left Greendale wasn’t all that conducive to thinking things out, what with the mill
ablaze and Tess being chased off by that madman, McNeil. I didn’t have so much as a butter knife on me. Again, I lied. “Squirrel. That’s what last night’s supper was, anyhow.”

  “Squirrel? Really?” She clamped a hand over her mouth.

  “Well, yeah.”

  She giggled. “You shot it?”

  “No, they just fall from the trees into my fire.” I forced a chuckle. “Of course I shot it.”

  “Is it squirrel season?”

  “I can find them fellows in any season.”

  “I don’t believe you.” She grinned. “You didn’t shoot a squirrel.”

  I struggled to think of some way out of the hole I’d just dug, but nothing came to me. I lowered my head. “I didn’t shoot a squirrel. I don’t have a gun.”

  A long silence wedged itself between us. I figured that whatever I might say next would be suspect. Where’d I come from? A village that burned down over a hundred years ago. How’d I get here? Magic? And why did I come? I came to give your ma directions to your grave.

  Whatever bond had existed between us was no longer there, and it wasn’t going to reappear simply because I wanted it to. And I did want it to. I needed time and patience.

  I got to my feet. “It’s been a pleasure, Tess.”

  She looked at me as though uncertain how to respond, but then said, “Okay.”

  “I appreciate the drink.” I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew I didn’t want to leave her, not without first establishing a connection, a claim to even the most tenuous relationship—something… anything.

  “You wouldn’t like a little something to eat before you go?”

  “Well…”

  “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. “Some.”

  “We don’t have squirrel, but I think there’s some pickle loaf in the fridge.” She smiled. “I could make you a sandwich.”

  I made no effort to hide my pleasure. She went into the house and returned with a plate holding two sandwiches. After I’d wolfed down the first one, I bit into the second. I couldn’t be sure what I was eating—perfectly uniform pinkish slices of something with little chunks of gray-green and red I-don’t-know-whats—but it was good.