The Contrary Tale of the Butterfly Girl: From the Peculiar Adventures of John Loveheart, Esq., Volume 2

by Ishbelle Bee

  This particular temple is cool and dark with great vines creeping round our feet and snails the size of teapots softly moving about. We have come here because we have been told that the rarest butterfly in the world has been spotted here. Her name is Angel-Eater and she is also the largest butterfly in the world. We must have her for our collection, for our exhibition in London on our return.

  We creep lower into the bowels of the temple, rubble and dark earth piled round our feet, the walls decaying and crumbling. Gabriel holds the torch, which flickers and spits, revealing paintings on the temple walls. Pictures crudely executed, showing the temple steps covered in piles of bodies, an ocean of bodies and a warrior woman standing at the top. At the bottom of the temple, a river is depicted stuffed full of human hearts.

  We come to a great stone door, which with a combined effort we manage to heave open.

  Inside is a small chamber with an altar, and a picture drawn on the wall of a deity wearing human skin. Gabriel points his finger to the ceiling and we both gasp for there we see an angel-eater, two foot long, wings as black as hell, floating above our heads.

  So softly my net sweeps her in, as though a lover plucking a sweetheart onto the dance floor. And in a moment she’s dead.

  We are both laughing and dancing. As happy as drunk bugs. Gabriel asks me to check the rest of the chamber to see if there are any more beauties hiding. I peek round the corners of the small chamber, move further in. And then I hear the door shut behind me. Gabriel has locked me in and taken the rarest butterfly in the world.

  Why am I not surprised?

  I don’t know how many days it has been but I am dying. The picture on the wall keeps talking to me. It wants to wear my skin. I try and fill my mind with my girls:

  Pearl-queen

  Cabbage-eater

  Ghost

  Blue emperor

  Dancing flames

  Jester-bells

  Toad-eye

  Devil’s finger

  Meadowsweet

  Maiden-kiss

  Butter-shark

  Little boy blue

  They flicker off my tongue like spit.

  Angel-Eater. The biggest.

  I tell the picture on the wall my name. I tell him before I forget it. He likes my name. He likes my skin. I am forgetting the names of the butterflies. I start to hallucinate. I have turned into a butterfly and glide about my tomb. I am a jester-bell, brown as a leaf in autumn with little red splodges on my wings. I am a little butterfly, quick moving and delicate as a wisp of smoke. See how high I can fly! And then drop, deep and low and skim the prison floor, my tiny wings brushing it like a flower petal across a cheek. For a moment I am so happy. So deliriously happy.

  Before I die he crawls into me. Starts to peel off my wings.

  The Wedding

  My wedding dress is as black as the stomach of a demon. A red sash is around my waist. A top hat on my head, the colour of liquorice. Butterfly butterfly butterfly: my wings are my curved silver blades concealed within my high-laced boots. Shall I spread my wings for you?

  Mr Angelcakes thinks I look interesting. I say, shouldn’t a bride look beautiful? He says I am not an ordinary bride.

  Mr Loveheart is throwing stones at my window. I open it and peer down at him. Today he’s dressed in white, red hearts like love bites.

  “Don’t marry him, Boo Boo! He’s incredibly dull.”

  Mr Angelcakes nods his head in agreement, his skin wobbling slightly.

  “Are you still going to blow him up?” I say, curiously.

  “I’m not spoiling the surprise,” he replies. “But I have been considering beating him to death with his own foot.”

  “I like that,” Mr Angelcakes says, “it’s subtle,” and a piece of his face falls off onto the floor.

  “He’s too old for you!” says Loveheart, impaling a wind-fallen apple on the point of his sword and examining it.

  “He’s a magician and he will turn you into a butterfly again.”

  “I shall have to decapitate him then, my darling,” and bows very low.

  “I do hope so, Mr Loveheart,” and I shut the window.

  The carriage arrives for me in the courtyard. Two black horses, as the Professor had specified, with red feathers in their manes. Mr Angelcakes keeps me company. He is looking forward to today. Grinning to himself, the skin round his lips drooping like melted wax.

  “You look good enough to eat,” he says fiendishly.

  The carriage moves shakily along the woodland path, juddering softly like jelly on a plate. A small note for me rests on the seat of the carriage:

  My Darling Boo Boo,

  My prize possession, my Angel-Eater, is staying with a friend in London. She is in safe hands. I felt it best to move her since Detective Waxford’s campaign to destroy my reputation. You will serve as a sufficient amusement for me until I am reunited with her.

  Your devoted,

  Gabriel

  “Oh dear, Mr Angelcakes, you won’t be getting your butterfly just yet.”

  The carriage pulls up to the church, which is decorated with heaps of flame-red roses, even on the tombstones. A massacre of flowers. Outside the church, Ignatius Hummingbird awaits me. He will be escorting me down the aisle.

  The doors to the church open, revealing row upon row of more blood flowers. The vicar, Mr Wormhole, stands with the Professor near the altar. I can see my brother, Pedrock, sitting with Mrs Charm and Mr Loveheart. Behind them, Grandpa, Aunt Grubweed with Prunella, Estelle and Cornelius, and Reverend Plum smiling nervously. Next to the door is Detective Waxford and standing in the very corner of the church, a man I have never seen before, with an eye-patch and black top hat.

  “Who is that man?” I ask Ignatius as we walk down the aisle.

  “Mr Cobweb. He is a friend of ours.”

  Detective Waxford with a face like a grumpy gargoyle approaches us. “Mr Ignatius Hummingbird. I am arresting you for abduction and attempted murder.”

  “Oh, Detective Waxford, you’re making a very stupid mistake.”

  Waxford takes out his handcuffs, “Either you come willingly or I shoot you,” and he withdraws his gun and aims it at Ignatius’s head.

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  Waxford pulls the trigger. Pieces of brain splatter my face. Ignatius falls to the floor in a heap. Prunella screams. Mr Loveheart stands up and wanders casually next to the detective, his sword in one hand.

  The walls of the church start to compress. Pillars wobble. The Professor, bright red in the face, as though he is about to burst screams; “You can’t kill my brother, NO NO NO,” and stomps his feet, “You can’t have my butterfly, NO NO NO.”

  Mr Cobweb shuts the church doors and stands by them like a guard dog from hell, removing a long thin blade.

  “This is becoming quite interesting,” says Mr Loveheart.

  The guests are starting to run for the door: the vicar, Mr Wormhole, nimblest on his feet, manages to squeeze himself out of the side window. Cornelius runs to the door and is hacked down by Mr Cobweb, limbs flying over Waxford’s head. Waxford shoots Mr Cobweb in the stomach, but Cobweb remains unhurt and stabs Reverend Plum in the throat.

  “What?” cries Waxford staring at his gun.

  Mr Loveheart throws his sword at Professor Hummingbird, pinning him to the back wall like one of his specimens. I pull the butterfly blades from my boots and approach my fiancé.

  Mr Cobweb has Prunella by the leg. He hacks it off and then starts chopping up Estelle. Mrs Charm, following the Vicar, is pushing Pedrock through the side window.

  I approach my fiancé.

  BANG! BANG! BANG!

  Waxford’s gun goes off again, no doubt still shooting at Mr Cobweb. A foot flies past Waxford’s head and bounces off the pulpit. Waxford is shouting, “This bloody village! I’m retiring after this case!”

  The Professor is trying to pull the sword out of his heart.

  “My darling butterfly.”

  “Where is the
Angel-Eater?” I say, my blade resting against his throat.

  “Somewhere you will not find it, sweetheart,” and he starts to laugh. I see Mrs Charm’s legs going through the window to her safety.

  BANG!

  Mr Loveheart shoots Mr Cobweb in the brain.

  Mr Cobweb grabs Grandpa and cuts his head off. Aunt Grubweed stands up, picking up a small angel statue, and hits Mr Cobweb over the head with it. He staggers about and then slices the top of her head off with his blade. He jumps out of the window, Waxford shooting at him.

  I look again at the Professor. “Last chance.”

  Mr Angelcakes is clapping and laughing, “Such fun, such fun!”

  The Professor, “I’m not telling you, you little bitch.”

  “But YOU must tell her,” Mr Angelcakes panics. “YOU must.”

  “NO,” he says, and he whispers a word of magic.

  ZAP!

  Everyone else turns into butterflies.

  A heap of rainbow wings fluttering about. Some dead on the floor. I can see Mr Loveheart; he’s a cherry-glitter red one soaring above the others. I am transfixed by this magic; I smile, half bewitched.

  Professor Hummingbird pulls the sword out of his stomach and grabs me by the hair. The butterflies soar and whizz round us, swoop in circles, move in spirals.

  He presses his hands round my head, squeezes my skull.

  I am on my knees; I am pulled under the weights of his magic. I shut my eyes; I shut my eyes and I see hovering in black space: the Angel-Eater. Huge, opening its wings. A book turning pages.

  My name is written on its wings.

  The Professor kills me with a kiss. Venom. Murderer of butterflies. It seeps through my skin: black in my veins. My story is ending

  And I see, I see the red butterfly of Mr Loveheart dazzle and float on air: the shape of a heart.

  I raise my blades. Slice the Professor in half.

  His scream is the sound of glass breaking. The butterflies in his house are flying out of their confines, a whirlwind of wings beating at a hundred miles an hour. The butterflies in the church turn back into people. Hit the floor with a thud.

  But the favourite, the Angel-Eater, is still behind glass, and Mr Angelcakes is weeping.

  Death has arrived.

  “Hello, Boo Boo,” he says, in a voice like liquid silver. Eyes like black mirrors and he holds out a hand and helps me off the floor. “You’d better come with me.”

  “No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said ‘no’.”

  He grabs me by the arm and starts dragging me along the floor, but Mr Loveheart intervenes suddenly and sweeps me up in his arms and kisses me.

  Time has no meaning anymore. It is electricity! We are sparks!

  “What do you think you are doing, Loveheart?” demands a very annoyed Death.

  “I am saving her, for I am the Lord of the Underworld and my kiss will bring the dead back to life,” and he takes a bag of rhubarb and custard sweeties out of his pocket and offers me one.

  “Unbelievable! I will require some compensation for this blatant disregard for the natural laws.”

  “Of course,” smiles Loveheart and offers him a boiled sweet.

  Detective Waxford is banging on the entrance of the church.

  “Someone open the fucking door!” he shouts.

  Mrs Charm opens obliges, “Ah! You’re still alive, detective.”

  “There’s a pile of dead people in here!” he cries.

  “Surely it’s not that bad,” she replies, and we all turn to view the heap of body parts splattered over the church floor. Waxford walks outside, tripping up over the dead body of Reverend Plum on the way out and cursing loudly.

  Mr Loveheart takes my hand. “I believe you are now available for courtship.”

  Loveheart and Boo Boo

  I have taken Boo Boo home with me to my Palace of Hearts. My little insect queen. All my hearts are yours.

  She plays with the heads in my trees, those dangling trinkets. She licks the heart-shaped lollypops.

  We drink hot chocolate, dance round my gardens. I chase her like a butterfly with a net. Jump through hoops for her. This is what love is: it makes all the clocks go backwards, brings the dead back to life. Grave-leaping. Time breaking.

  The roses in my gardens are love bombs: they are exploding.

  Waiting for Butterflies

  I sleep in the big bed of hearts, beside Mr Loveheart. I dream of the Angel-Eater opening her wings like a prayer book.

  WINGS ARE PAGES. PAGES ARE WINGS. READ ME.

  WORSHIP ME

  She speaks. “You will find me. You will find me behind glass.”

  I spread butterfly wings on my toast.

  Open a pot of marmalade.

  Talk to my knife.

  I wonder whether I am made of question marks

  ?

  ??????????

  ? ? ?

  Part Three

  Houses of Parliament

  Zedock Heap Eating a Battenberg

  I’ve been thinking about that little prince, Mr Loveheart, all day; he keeps popping into my head for some unfathomable reason. Mmmmm. I take a piece of the Battenberg and crush it between my teeth. Succulent squeeze.

  Hanging on my office wall, above my head is the Angel-Eater, a butterfly as black as a hole in space, as red as a heart. She’s beating her wings, trying to get out. Like my women in cages. They refuse to accept their confinement; they refuse to accept they are my food.

  YOU ARE A CAKE, MY DARLING. SHOW ME YOUR CREAM.

  I like to construct boundaries; I like to form edges on spaces. KEEP YOU WITHIN THE LINES.

  My mind is unsettled at the moment; I keep twiddling my thumbs.

  A knock at the door.

  “Come in,” I say, yawning.

  Mr Evening-Star enters, his voice a quiver, “Good afternoon, Prime Minister. I have come to inform you all the arrangements are ready for this evening.”

  “Excellent,” I sigh.

  “I also have some rather bad news, I’m afraid. Ignatius and Gabriel Hummingbird are both dead.”

  “Really?” Something interesting at last.

  “Yes, a most unfortunate occurrence. Slaughtered at a wedding.”

  “And who killed them?” I lean forward and a suspicion creeps into my thoughts. A symbol, a heart on as string, floats in my head.

  “Well,” he replies nervously, “It appears Ignatius was shot in the head by a Detective Waxford of Scotland Yard for refusing to be arrested.”

  “I like the sound of this plucky Detective Waxford.”

  “And Gabriel was sliced in half by his sixteen year old bride-to-be. A girl named Boo Boo.”

  I glance up at the Angel-Eater in the frame. “Ahhh, the little butterfly girl. I would like to meet her.”

  “And another gentleman was also involved: a Mr Loveheart. Mr Cobweb informs me that this Mr Loveheart can bring the dead back to life with a kiss which is quite an unusual gift. Considering the astronomical murder statistics in London, power over death would be a formidable asset. Why only this morning I witnessed a man hit over the head with a privy door!”

  My heart stops.

  “WHAT… What did you say?” I gasp.

  “Privy door. Apparently, according to an infamous and deranged linguist, of all the phrases in the English language, ‘Privy door’ is the most beautiful.”

  I held him up in the air by the throat.

  “Ah.” He squeezed the words out. “I see that’s not the information you required!”

  “I’m waiting, Mr Evening-Star!”

  “Mr Loveheart can kiss the dead and bring them back to life.”

  I am shaking. “This is not possible,” and I drop him on the floor and grip the sides of the desk compressing it until it shatters.

  “Sir? Do you know him?”

  “I have had the curious pleasure of meeting him,” I spit out the words of boiled rage.

  “Um, do you require anythin
g from me, Prime Minister? A cup of tea or perhaps a nice, buttery egg?” He creeps towards the door.

  “GET OUT BEFORE I WHIP THE SKIN OFF YOU!”

  “Of course, Prime Minister,” a glassy smile on his lips; he delicately shuts the door

  slipping out of existence.

  The Angel-Eater is beating its wings in the frame behind me, pin through its heart, trying to break free.

  I crush the Battenberg under my fist. Pound it into the remains of the desk.

  LOVEHEART

  BASH!

  LOVEHEART

  BOOM!

  LOVEHEART

  SPLAT!

  Zedock visits the British Museum

  After murdering the Battenberg I slip out into the streets of London; head towards the museum. I need a little fresh air; it will calm the bubbling under my skin, sooooothe the pressure. I think about pulling Mr Loveheart’s head off and sucking on his spinal cord. Little prince, little prince, you DARE step into my fairy tale, you DARE try to rearrange my story. I am the OGRE. The MAN -EATER.

  SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, MR LOVEHEART, AND I AM THE BIGGEST

  I think about my women in cages, screaming, begging for their lives. MEAT. MEAT MEAT. That is all you are in my world. I think about the bottle of cherry wine I will sup tonight when I eat one of them. Savour the vintage; uncork and let it BREATHE.

  I AM YOUR PRIME MINISTER AND YOU NEED TO FEED ME ENGLAND.

  My mood is black.

  I change the colour of the Thames to mirror my thoughts. I can shift London into whatever shape I choose. Ripple and sludge. Simmer and boil. I move across London, past the filth, past the flesh, past the stink of you all. My footsteps mark the city. I leave my imprint. Hell is, after all, only a few inches below. Can you feel the red? Can you feel the heat under your feet?