All the Butterflies in the World

by Rodney Jones

  I found the number for the state police, flipped open my phone, and called. The man who answered identified himself as Sergeant Snow.

  “Hello,” I said. “Who do I need to speak to about some stolen money?”

  “You want to report a robbery?”

  “No, I meant possibly stolen.”

  “Possibly stolen?”

  “Well, um… someone showed me some coins, and I just want to make sure they’re not stolen.”

  “Oh. Well, tell me about them.”

  I described the book and the coins. He took down the dates and denominations of the coins then put me on hold with some staticky Muzak. Liz sat on the side of my bed, thumbing through my Louisa Gilder book, which I only understood about ten percent of, but I still found it fascinating. There was something immensely romantic about entangled particles.

  A male voice interrupted a squawky rendition of “Penny Lane” and said his name was Captain Willis. “Miss McKinnon, we have nothing matching your list. If you have reason to believe the book and coins were stolen, you should come in and file a report with us.”

  “Uh… well, no, I don’t,” I said. “I just wanted to be sure.” I thanked him then clapped the phone shut.

  Liz closed the book and slid it back on top of my dresser. “So?”

  “They don’t know.”

  “Don’t they have like a worldwide database for stolen art and stuff? They just type in Twenty Thousand Leagues, and beep beep beep, the word hot flashes on the screen?”

  “Well, yeah, they did that, and nothing beeped. So I guess he’s innocent.”

  “He’s crazy.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he just has an overactive imagination.”

  Liz snickered. “You mean a case of bullshitatosis?”

  “Nothing criminal about that.”

  “Look, the guy is like homeless, lugging around this little treasure chest, his only possession or whatever, and he trusts you with it? Someone he’s known for ten minutes? I don’t know about you, but to me, that’s flaming ding-ding-ding nutzoid.”

  The faint rumble of the garage door rising told me that Mom was home from work. I gathered the coins and book, returned them to the box, and slid it under my bed. A few moments later, she appeared in the doorway.

  “Hi, Mrs. McKinnon,” Liz said.

  Mom sniffed the air. “What’s going on here?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just talking.”

  She threw a suspicious squint my way.

  “We’re going over to Nicole’s, if that’s okay,” I told her.

  “To do what?”

  I shrugged. “LSD?”

  She huffed. “Whatever. Just stay out of trouble, and don’t be out late. I’m going to bed early tonight.”

  I nodded. “I’ll be home by ten.”

  “And be sure to chain the front door when you come in. There are weirdos out there in the woods.”

  After calling and confirming that both Nicole and her dad were home, Liz and I left for North Clarendon, a small village just south of Rutland.

  As we drove up Route 7, batting theories about John Bartley back and forth, Liz said, “I’d like to meet your new boyfriend.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “God. You are so possessive, Tess.”

  “Okay, fine. Come over tomorrow. I’ll introduce you. But if you embarrass me, or him, in any way, shape, or form, I’ll unfriend you.”

  “Like I would ever…”

  At Nicole’s house, I worked my way in to stand in front of Mr. Adam’s cluttered, metal desk, which had somehow been squeezed into a room hardly big enough to accommodate it, let alone the stacks of crap surrounding it. Boxes were piled five feet high, and book shelves, filing cabinets, and more boxes lined the opposite wall, leaving only a narrow path to the side and front of the desk. The room might have been nice and cozy but for an odor lingering in the air—rancid potato chips or cabbage or both.

  I handed John’s box to Nicole’s dad. I’d always thought he was handsome, in a rugged, off-center kind of way. His hair hung a bit longish and unkept, his eyes slightly out of sync—where Nicole got her eyes, I assumed—the right always appearing serious, while the left made me wonder. Perhaps there was so much going on in his head that it short-circuited his eyes.

  He set the box down in a relatively clear spot and raised the lid. “What’s this?”

  “An old book,” I said.

  “I thought you had coins.”

  “They’re underneath.”

  He lifted the book. “Oh, my God.” He groaned. “This is wrong. Wrong.” He shook his head. “Like keeping your rare gems in a rock tumbler. And then throw a book on top of them? You may as well have tossed a brick in there. Just so wrong.”

  He slipped on a pair of glasses with a magnifier protruding from the right lens then picked up one of the half-dollars and held it up. “Uh huh.” Sliding a legal pad closer, he flipped to a clean page, jotted down some esoteric pairings of numbers and letters, then peered down into the box. “There are actually quite a few nice coins here.” He gently laid the half-dollar on a black-velvet-lined tray then continued inspecting the coins one at a time, scribbling and making frequent remarks. “Jesus…” “Oh yeah…” “Hmm…” “Nice.” He wrote down some more figures. “So how did your friend come by these?”

  “Uh, an inheritance or something. From an uncle.”

  “Well, surely his uncle would’ve kept them better protected than this. Don’t get me wrong. These coins are nice. Most of them, I’d say, are worth between one and three hundred dollars. Those”—he nodded toward a group of coins he’d laid to one side—“are exceptional, maybe worth seven to twelve thousand, possibly more. There could be fifteen thousand in coins here.”

  I gaped at him. “Really?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “He’ll not get that from a dealer, but I might be able to get him a good price online.”

  “He’s kind of hard up for cash right now. He’s unemployed and homeless.”

  Mr. Adam’s right eye filled with concern. “Where’s he staying?”

  “He’s camping in the woods.”

  “What’s there to eat out there?”

  I shrugged. “Squirrels?”

  He peered down at the coins all neatly lined up on his velvet tray. “Your friend probably destroyed half their value by shuffling them around in that box. And that book… what is that?”

  He slid the book over and studied its cover. Then, he lifted it and examined the spine. “I read this when I was a kid. Nice-looking book.” He opened it to the title page, turned to the next page, then back again. “Huh…” He flipped through the pages, stopping at the illustrations, then went back to the title page. “That’s odd. They didn’t include a list of previous editions here. If this is a… no, it can’t be.”

  He pulled open another desk drawer, took out a small black book, and thumbed through its pages. “Eric Harrison. A book dealer in Andover.” He tapped a number into his phone. Moments later, I heard the beep of a voice mail prompt. “Eric, it’s Richard Adams… from the antique show in Weston. I’m looking at a copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. Came with a box of old coins…” He went on to describe the book then left his number and returned the phone to its cradle. He looked up at me. “The guy who gave you the box… who is he?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t really know him. Not well, anyhow. I mean, I just met him a few days ago.”

  “You’re sure this stuff’s not stolen?”

  “Yeah.”

  Nicole’s dad agreed to try to sell the coins. Then he gave me three hundred dollars in cash for six of the pennies, which he wanted for his own collection.

  “Tell your friend to take the book to Eric Harrison at Over Andover. He’ll know what it is and whether it’s worth anything. If he offers to buy it�
� well, I think you can safely bet you’d do better shopping around.”

  After thanking him, I went off to join my friends. Nicole was emptying the dishwasher and sorting the cutlery into a drawer. Liz was at the kitchen table, sipping a soda.

  Nicole looked up when I entered. “What’d my dad think of the coins?”

  “Don’t touch your piggy bank. Those nickels and quarters are going to be worth a lot of money someday. Thousands.”

  Liz’s eyebrows shot up. “He said they’re worth thousands?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe fifteen.”

  “You’re shitting me,” Nicole said.

  I shook my head. “Nope, that’s what he said.”

  We sat around the table, gabbing about money and fantasizing about the stuff we’d buy: Nicole a horse, Liz a Mini Cooper, me a trip to New Zealand, or maybe Ireland, or Costa Rica. Mr. Adams came in looking for a snack, which morphed into the production of a large, complicated sandwich. Having her dad there seemed to make Nicole edgy, prompting an invite to her room.

  Upstairs in Nicole’s bedroom, Liz’s eyes took on a familiar restless, critical look, as though seeking the comfort of disarray. “Did you repaint?”

  “No. It’s been this color forever,” Nicole said.

  The walls, rugs, and bedding—all decorated in beige, gold, purple-brown, and an occasional thoughtful dash of red—made me think of a Crate & Barrel catalogue. Liz had once complained, “It’s like she’s terrified of ugly or something.”

  I pointed at the iPod station on her dresser top, emitting some sort of country music. “Who is that?”

  “Sarah Jarosz,” Nicole said. “Do you like it?”

  Liz giggled. “Got any moonshine?”

  I ignored her. “Is that the kind of stuff they play at contra dances?”

  Nicole shrugged. “Are you coming?”

  I looked at Liz. “Why don’t we all go? There’ll be scads of cute guys.”

  “Beer-swillin’ rednecks,” Liz said, tipping a make-believe bottle to her lips.

  “Oh, come on, Liz,” Nicole said. “It’s on the campus in Middlebury.”

  “Woo-hoo. There’ll be cow-tipping afterward.” Liz snorted then turned to me. “Hey, why don’t you invite your new boyfriend?”

  “Hmm, I may just do that… now that he’s rich.” I grinned.

  chapter six

  John

  I sat in front of the fire pit, poking at the cold ashes and trying to picture my own home—a modern house, suitable for Tess and our brood. It would have electric lights, hot and cold running water, ice for cold drinks, an indoor flush-toilet, a machine that washed clothes, and another that did the dishes—all the things that Tess would expect and deserve. But I had no idea how to get from a borrowed tent in the woods to a home like that.

  Snap!

  Twisting around, I was delighted to see Tess wading through a patch of fiddlehead ferns.

  “Good morning,” she said. “Ready for some scrambled eggs and coffee?”

  We sat at the table on the deck out behind her house. Tess was telling me about a “cool app” her friend Nicole recently “downloaded.” I had no idea what she was going on about, but I didn’t care. She was talking to me, and that was all that mattered. I took a sip of coffee then shoveled in a large bite of scrambled eggs.

  “Something you told me the other day…” she said.

  I chewed, trying to recall a detail from my first visit. I was sitting at the table inside, watching Tess grate cheese into a large bowl. I couldn’t remember what it was she’d said she was making.

  “You time traveled,” she continued, “and got to know me, but I don’t remember, because…”

  A camelot? I struggled to remember.

  “…you were in my future?”

  “An omelet?”

  “What?”

  “An omelet. The other time I was here, you made an omelet.”

  “Oh.” She brought a finger to her lips, studying me as if I were a almost played-out checkerboard. “What kind of omelet?”

  “Eggs, I reckon.”

  “Well, duh. I mean, what else was in it? Like what kind of meat?”

  “It didn’t have meat in it, just cheese, a white stringy cheese, and onions and tomatoes.” I forked another chunk of egg onto my bread and shoved it into my mouth.

  “Really, how are you doing that?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Oh, come on. You just described my favorite omelet.”

  “Like I told you. I’ve been here before.”

  She pinched her cheeks together, distorting her lips. “And why wouldn’t I remember that?”

  Our eyes met with what were perhaps equal levels of curiosity and interest. I glanced down at her lips and, for just a brief moment, imagined them close to mine, the feel of her breath on my cheek.

  “Tess…” I leaned in closer. “When I returned to the future, I arrived here before we’d met. I’m pretty sure I explained that already.”

  “Yeah, yeah, maybe you did. So my future-self remembers, but I don’t because I haven’t time traveled yet, right?”

  I dropped my gaze to the fork on my plate. “You didn’t come back, Tess.”

  “Oh? You mean I loved it so much that I stayed? I’m still there?”

  “Truth is, you didn’t much care for it. You didn’t come back because you couldn’t.”

  “So I’m still there? I’m here, and I’m in 1875 at the same time?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  She sighed. “Oh, now I understand.”

  I watched as she pushed her fork around, lining up the egg crumbs on her plate. I was telling partial truths. Unfortunately, there was no way to bend it and have it still be the truth rather than the gibberish I’d been spouting.

  “I don’t know what to make of you,” she said.

  I looked down at my plate and nodded.

  “Anyway, I have something for you.” She slid an envelope across the table.

  I opened the envelope and found it filled with paper money. “What is this?”

  “It’s for six of your pennies. Mr. Adams agreed to sell the other coins, too. He thinks you’ll end up with close to fifteen thousand.”

  I swallowed. “Dollars?”

  “Yeah, for seventeen dollars in change. Not bad, huh?”

  I gulped. “My Lord.”

  “What are you going to do with all that?”

  “Hmm. Don’t rightly know yet,” I said, though I really did. I thumbed through the stack of bills. “Folks’ll accept this, same as silver?” I raised the money to my nose—a blend of perfume, oil, leather, and dye.

  Tess smiled. “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “I don’t know why you think you need those stories. You don’t.”

  I gazed off toward the woods and imagined walking through the jewelweed at the edge of the yard. I would keep going, back a ways, where it was quiet, where I didn’t have to explain myself.

  “Well, you don’t.” She scooted back in her chair then got up and stepped around to my side of the table.

  “Stories… it’s about all I have.”

  “You have a friend.” She stood there beside me, the beginning of a smile showing in her eyes, just a hint of one. “Do you know how to dance?”

  “What?”

  “Dance… boogie, bust a move.” She raised her hands in the air and spun around.

  “Yeah.” I smiled. I’d more than once entertained fantasies of Tess and me on an open floor, her hand in mine, her body so close I could feel her warmth. I could almost smell her perfume of rain and earth and milkweed blossoms. “Of course I know how to dance.”

  “You ever been to a contra dance?”

  “Is it anything like barn dancin’?”

  “I
don’t know. I’ve never been. I have some friends who want me to go to one in Middlebury tonight.”

  “Up by Burlington? That far?”

  She frowned. “It’s just an hour’s drive.”

  “An hour.” The idea of moving that fast, faster than a train, still gave me a little thrill. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t already experienced it firsthand.

  She tilted her head, studying me. “What kind of dances do they do in barns?”

  “All the usual figures.”

  “The usual figures?”

  “Do-si-does, heys, stars, lines, all that kind of thing.”

  “And that’s contra dancing?”

  I shrugged. “If you want to call it that.”

  “Jesus, John, I don’t want to call it that. I don’t want to call it anything. I just want to know if they’re the same.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “Where I’m from, it’s all just called barn dancing.” I bit my tongue to keep from giving her my sermon on what cussing was and wasn’t.

  “Fine.” She huffed. “A figure. What exactly is that?”

  “Just a piece of a dance.” I stood and extended my hand. “Here. I’ll show you.”

  She took my hand.

  I led her away from the table. “Face me. Look me in the eye.” When she did as I asked, I said, “Now, step by on my left. All right. I step, step to your left, then you step, step to mine… and back and then pass to my right until you’re back at your starting spot.” I had to correct her a time or two, but then she got it. “That’s a do-si-do. A figure.”

  “And that’s contra dancing?”

  “It’s just one figure, Tess, one of the easier ones. You’ll need to learn six or more, then put them together, before you can call it any kind of a dance.”

  “Show me another.”

  I did, and though I could only teach her the few that didn’t require neighbors, she displayed a definite knack for it.

  “Come with me tonight,” she said.

  Being asked by a gal felt peculiar, and I couldn’t imagine it ever feeling otherwise, but I wasn’t going to pass on an opportunity I’d so far only dreamed of. “My pleasure,” I said.