All the Butterflies in the World

by Rodney Jones

  I eventually fell asleep—fitfully at first. I was dreaming I was back home in my aunt’s kitchen when I heard Tess call my name.

  “John? Are you in there?”

  “Huh?” I lifted my head and peered toward the entrance of the tent. Tess’s bare legs, smooth as river rock, were framed by the open flaps. “Uh… did I oversleep?”

  “We need to talk,” she said.

  “All right. Give me a minute.” I squirmed into my britches, slipped on my new shirt, then crawled out of the tent.

  Tess paced back and forth on the other side of my ash-filled fire ring. I stood there for a moment, blinking and trying to shake the sleep from my head, then glanced back over my shoulder. The sun hadn’t yet broken over the mountaintop, but it was about to, putting the time at somewhere near nine.

  “John, the morning you first showed up, you were surprised to see me.”

  “I was, yes.”

  “You thought I was dead?”

  My pulse quickened. I tried to recall the story I had given her the day before. I was pretty sure we had talked about that.

  She put her hands on her hips. “If I was dead, then what were you doing here?”

  That was the part of the story I most wished to avoid—her death and the hours surrounding it. Was it really necessary that she have every little detail?

  She gave me an impatient look. “I like you, John. I like hanging out with you. But when we’re not together, everything changes, like I see things differently.” She shook her head. “Please, I need the truth. Tell me everything, or, or you can”—she looked down at her entwined fingers—“or we can’t be friends.”

  “Tess…” I let out a sigh. “The night of the fire… you were—”

  “Fire? Exactly what fire are you talking about?”

  “Greendale. The fire in Greendale.” I hustled the bits and pieces into what I hoped was a sensible sequence. “When all hell broke loose, you took off up the mountain for the ribbon place. I was going to—”

  “Wait. What mountain? The ribbon place?”

  “The one above Greendale, the place I was telling you about, the passageway between our times, 1875 and 2009. I wanted to go with you, see you home, but the mill was burning, and the sheriff had just shot my uncle. You took off without me. The next thing I knew, my uncle was waking me.”

  “Uh… what?”

  “McNeil whacked me on the back of the head and knocked me out.” I reached up and rubbed the spot on my head, where there was still a small lump. “I went off to find you. I wanted to go back with you. I mean, to your time. But on my way up the mountain, I ran into McNeil—the sheriff—again. He pulled a pistol on me. He was going to shoot us both.”

  “Both?”

  “I managed to get ahold of his gun and scare him off.”

  “Your uncle, you mean? He shot your uncle.”

  The memory of the moment I found her body was stuck in my heart like an ax stuck in a log—Tess sitting there on the ground in the pre-dawn, her back to a boulder, eyes closed, appearing as peaceful as if she were merely resting. But then there was the blood… and a flood of despair. “He killed you.”

  Tess clasped her hands over her head. “Okay. The sheriff?”

  My heart thumped against my ribs. “I should’ve killed him when I had a chance. McNeil hated you even before he’d met you.” I looked her straight in the eyes. “I tried to bring you home. I had you in my arms, but the instant I arrived here, you were gone. You’d vanished. That day… that first day here, when you dropped your key in the flowers? I’d come to tell your ma.”

  She stood there for a moment, gazing off into the woods behind me. “So you really thought I was dead. You were—”

  “I believe I had a fair reason to.”

  “And you were going to tell my mom?”

  I nodded. “I thought she should know. I figured you’d want that.”

  “My God. You’d be locked away right now if it’d been her, instead of me, here that day. Jesus.”

  “Well, anyhow, that’s why I was surprised. I mean, it was the most… I was… I don’t even know what I was.”

  “You were like…” She crossed her eyes and let her chin fall.

  “Well, it didn’t take me long to realize why you were here, alive. You see, I came back before we’d even met.”

  “So that’s what you were trying to tell me?”

  “I thought I was telling you.”

  Tess plopped down on the ground. “The sheriff shot me? Just because he didn’t like me?”

  I parked my back against a tree and gave her the whole story: McNeil’s mistaking the runaway gal from Rutland for Tess, me and my uncle being jailed, Tess soliciting the Jacobsons for help. I did my best to explain how the sheriff’s dislike of her grew into the deadly hatred it did. When I was done, she just sat there gazing toward her feet.

  “Why?” she asked. “What’d I do to him?”

  “I think he felt cheated. He had you pegged as the runaway, so sure of himself. Then you went and proved him wrong. He was a man who couldn’t accept being wrong for nothin’. You denied him that, his righteousness, exposed him for the fool he was. By killing you, he showed you he was just a little more right than you.”

  She pressed her hands to the sides of her head. “Well, no wonder I was in such a hurry to leave. The guy sounds like a complete asshole.”

  “Oh, he was that. I think McNeil figured he’d get me too, rope me in by putting the blame on my uncle. He maybe thought I’d come forward with my story, thinking no one would believe it. I’m telling you, it must’ve drove him crazy, him knowing that I knew, and then me up and disappearing.” I took a deep breath. “You want me to leave?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Are we still friends?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it too late for breakfast?”

  “And lunch.” She smiled. “Oh, come on. I’ll make you some waffles.”

  We walked to her house, and since her mom was gone, Tess invited me inside. I sat at her big oak table, enjoying a cup of coffee while I watched her make waffles. Actually, she just removed them from a brightly colored paper box and dropped them into an electric machine not much bigger than a loaf of bread. A minute later, they popped up, crisp and hot. My breakfast of the future was ready.

  “Oh, I’ve got good news,” Tess said as she sat down. “Nicole’s dad found a buyer for some of your coins.”

  I nodded. “Great.”

  “The guy’s in Boston. You ever been there?”

  “Well, no, but I can tell you all about it.”

  “Yeah?”

  I lifted my eyes toward the ceiling. “Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. On the eighteenth of April, in ’75; hardly a man is now alive—”

  “Ralph Waldo Emerson,” Tess said.

  “Who?”

  “Didn’t he write that?”

  “Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote it.”

  She shrugged. “Whatever.” Then her face broke out in a grin. “Mr. Adams said he’d FedEx the coins there. But it still might be a week or two before you see any money.”

  “I have something to confess. The three hundred dollars you gave me the other day? I thought it’d last a year. Umm… I’ve got just over twenty-two dollars left. I figured things might cost more, but… heck.”

  “Oh.” She pinched off another chunk of waffle with her fork, shoved it into her mouth, and chewed. “No reason to worry now.”

  “No.” I glanced down at my cleaned plate. “Thank you for the fine breakfast. I’ve never had waffles from out of a box like that.”

  She stabbed the last piece of waffle on her plate and dragged it around in a circle through the remaining pool of syrup. “They’re really just a delivery mechanism for syrup and butter.” She
popped it into her mouth.

  A moment or two later, she lifted her coffee to her lips and peered at me over the rim of the cup. “You okay? You look lost.”

  “There’s something I’ve been thinking about. The other times I came, I returned to the same instant—”

  “What other times?”

  “There were four, if you include the first, the time I found the ribbon. And then the time you were there with me. Remember me telling you? When I returned, you didn’t believe me. You swore I didn’t go anywhere. And that first time I met you, I was here for three full days. I returned to the exact same moment I’d left, like no time had passed at all.”

  “But if you were here for three days, then you must’ve gone home on the twenty-fifth. Why wouldn’t you arrive here on the twenty-fifth, the same moment you left the first time?”

  I wrestled with that for a moment, trying to untangle the timeline. “That’d be logical, but it seems it doesn’t work that way. I arrive here on the twenty-second of July, 2009, no matter what time or day it is there.”

  “Hmm. That’s weird.” She put a hand to her chin. “Maybe it’s that way to avoid a paradox.” At my quizzical look, she added, “So you don’t run into yourself.”

  I shrugged. “That may be.” I set my cup down. “So here’s what I’m thinking. If I was to go back, I’m guessing I’d arrive at the same moment there that I’d left. That’s what I’d hope anyhow.” I flipped my hands out before me, palms up. “I could spare my aunt and uncle a lot of hardship if I was to… well, take care of things.”

  “John…” Her eyes were filled with concern, the most beautiful concern I’d ever seen.

  “I’ll be back, Tess.”

  chapter eleven

  Tess

  John had taken a sudden interest in the stainless ware, examining his knife then his fork. I tried to imagine myself living in his time, before computers and TV. I got a crazy picture in my mind—me skipping barefoot through a field of tall grass, the sun in my hair, the smell of pie in the air, all Little House on the Prairie.

  I’d never met anyone like John. I was attracted to him, but I worried it was only because he was so freakin’ different. Once I’d gotten past my initial fear of him, I began the challenge of analyzing, categorizing, characterizing, and labeling him. I hadn’t gotten far, but the few conclusions I’d arrived at painted a picture that leaned more toward innocence than psycho killer. Yeah, he was naïve, perhaps ignorant, but not dumb and not crazy, not maniacally crazy, anyway. I liked John. But I didn’t realize how much until he suggested leaving.

  I put down my cup. “If what you say is true, if you return here on July twenty-second, then how will I know you? It’ll be like we’d never met, right?”

  He laid his fork on his plate and nodded. “My third time through all that. I’ll have to convince you all over again.”

  “Why put yourself through that? Why even come back, with so many things that can go wrong?”

  His head tipped to the side as he frowned. “What do you mean?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t want me to come back?”

  “Of course I do.” I’d never noticed before, but he had a tiny scar at the very tip of his left eyebrow, near his temple. Cute.

  He looked away. “I don’t want to live in a world without you.”

  A world without you. The words flowed through my mind like calligraphy on a silk ribbon. A tingling spread across my scalp. I wanted to say something. I probably should’ve said, “That’s so sweet. Thank you,” but I didn’t. I couldn’t manage to put two words together. I’d only met the guy five days ago. Maybe all his talk of a shared past experience had created a false sense of connection. I sighed. “So when are you thinking of doing this?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not quite there.”

  “Are you scared?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “How about I come with you?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I don’t want you even seeing the place.”

  “God, but that’d be awesome. Really. Travel back in time? See where you lived and meet your aunt and uncle?” I worked up an innocent smile.

  “You’ve met them.”

  I let my shoulders and then my smile fall. “Right.”

  “I can’t take you with me. It’s too risky.”

  “It’s okay.” I slid my hand across the table and patted his. “You’re coming right back?”

  “I am. I will.”

  “And then what?”

  “Well, I was thinking I’d come to your door and say howdy.”

  “What if I slam it in your face?”

  He chuckled. “With me just being neighborly?”

  “And this will be five days ago?”

  “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life knowing I could’ve made things right for my aunt and uncle but didn’t. I know the longer I wait, the harder it’s gonna get. And I can’t be sure the opportunity will always be there, either. I’ve got to do it now.”

  I struggled to wrap my mind around the concept. Skipping back five days? But it wouldn’t be me skipping back; it would just be John. He would remember the past five days, but I wouldn’t. But if he didn’t come back for some reason… “So this conversation we’re having right now, I’ll have no memory of it because it never happened. Right?”

  “We’ll start over.”

  “A part of my life is going to be erased?”

  “No, it’ll just be different.” His fingertips drummed the side of his empty coffee mug.

  “But how much different?”

  “It won’t matter because you won’t know either way.”

  “Right. And when you come back, what if I don’t believe you? I mean, why would I? What if the butterfly effect turns me into a person you won’t like?”

  “The butterfly effect?”

  “It’s a theory about how small things can affect bigger things,” I said.

  “I doubt there’s enough butterflies in the world to change how I feel about you. As far as you believing me? What can I do? What would you believe?”

  I thought about that for a moment. Maybe I could give him something, perhaps a secret that no one else knew about me. If he knew something too personal though, it might creep me out and make me distrust him more. But then again, if it was something I’d never told anyone, I’d have no choice but to believe him.

  I explained my idea. “I need a little time to come up with something, though.”

  “Tomorrow. I should leave in the morning.”

  I sighed. “So you’ll return to 1875 and bury me. How are you going to dig the hole? With squirrel bones?”

  “Oh, right. Can I borrow your spade?”

  I only partly believed the things John had told me. I half-thought he was going to hike up the mountain with a shovel in his hand and step through some invisible time warp into 1875. I told myself that I believed, and I talked as if it were real, but I could not make the leap into full conviction. And believing I had a dead clone waiting to magically appear the moment he arrived there was like a jump across the Grand Canyon.

  “John?”

  “Yeah?”

  I wanted to suggest that because we were both in agreement that his going back was totally wacked, he should not go. Instead, I said, “I’ll make you breakfast before you go, something real.”

  We had another cup of coffee. John talked about his childhood, described growing up in the nineteenth century, and told me about his mom, his two brothers, his sister Sarah, and the little he knew of his dad. He told me about the school he’d attended, subjects he liked and disliked, people he liked and a few he didn’t. He shared the things he enjoyed doing in his spare time—hunting, fishing, swimming, reading. And although he’d already told me the story of my visit to 1875, I wanted to h
ear it again, the whole thing, the good and the bad.

  So he once again stumbled through the ugly details, right up to how he’d found my lifeless body in the woods. And this time I really listened. But believing something and identifying with it are two completely different things. It was like a story my mom told me about the time I nearly choked to death on a piece of cheese when I was two. Years later, she could still work herself into a frenzy retelling the story, but for me, the drama simply wasn’t there.

  When John finished, I shared my story. Trying to put myself in his shoes, I described what being a teenager was like in the twenty-first century. I gave him a brief history lesson: the Wright brothers, the moon landing, the ISS, the major wars, 9/11, Bush, Obama, the Beatles, Lady Gaga. I told him about my favorite TV shows, movies, and music. Explaining Facebook, YouTube, and Netflix was difficult, but it was fun.

  As the afternoon wore on, the conversation wound down, as though the reality of the coming day was tapping at the door and we were pretending not to hear it. John left the house a few minutes before three, saying he needed to do some thinking. I could feel his nervousness.

  As he stepped down off the deck, I smiled and said, “I’ll see you in the morning.” I acted as if it were any other good-bye, but as I watched him disappear into the woods, a feeling of loss came over me, as if I’d never see him again. All I could do was trust that he’d keep his promise and come back.

  I cleaned the kitchen and did a load of laundry, all the while thinking about John, his stories, and time travel. The most interesting guy I’d ever met—the sweetest and kindest too—was about to take a trip to the nineteenth century where a sheriff was running amok, shooting girls and hanging innocent people simply because he was bored.

  An hour later, I went out, sat on the steps of the deck, and called Liz. “Hey, do you think your mom would lend me her GPS?”