“Before he died, Mr. Levy, as you might know, had a brilliant and promising future as an Architect. He acquired an isolated plot near a cliff about fifteen kilometers off Dingle, Ireland. It is a beautiful place they call Dunbeg Fort. It is far away from the most touristic, Iron Age areas, so you won’t have to worry about that, you will be able to lead a very calm life. Very calm... after his parents’ death, Mr. Levy’s inheritance was used to finish the construction of the house he designed for you. Thus, you’re here for me to tell you that you are now the owner of the house they call now the Butterfly.
“I don’t understand,” said Amy after a few seconds. “Why didn’t I know anything about this? Tom kept no secret from me.”
“I imagine he wanted to surprise you, even if he wouldn’t be around to see your expression. I’m terribly sorry for his death, I truly am. But you are now the owner of a magnificent house. The decision to keep it is yours, of course. You can sell it, rent it, or...
“No, of course not,” interrupted Amy. “I would never do that... If Tom made it, I...”
Amy struggled to fight the tears, but she couldn’t avoid them. They always appeared in the most inconvenient of times. Tanner, obviously uncomfortable, opened the drawer in his desk and took out a set of keys.
“You can have these, they’re yours. But, before, we should sign this documents.”
When Amy left the lawyer’s office, she had the feeling that she was going to faint. She stared at the keys of the house that Tom had planned before dying. A house for her... called Butterfly. She remembered Tom’s dreams. Those butterflies... their powerful fluttering and how much he hated them. Why Butterfly? Why?
When she got back to her place, Amy looked up information about Dingle. Situated at the edge of the Atlantic in southwest Ireland in Kerry County, it was said that it was possibly the most beautiful cost of the country. A beautiful town of fishermen and steep streets, bordered by Shannon river in the north, and Kerry Ring in the south. Amy fell in love with its beaches and its cliffs by touring them on Google Maps. The beauty of the town captivated her and she wished to be there, even among so many people... tourists, mostly, who crowded the small towns downtown on the weekends. Amy wished to find the location of the Butterfly house that Tom had designed for her, and she discovered it was located far away from everything. Exactly as mister Tanner had said, it was fifteen kilometers away from the town.
Amy looked at the photograph the lawyer gave her, and then looked at the map the internet showed. In the map, the spectacular house by the cliff still wasn’t charted, but she could imagine it clearly... she could see it there, waiting for her. Bitter and lonely as her own soul after Tom’s unexpected departure. She suddenly felt flooded by an immense happiness, wishing to know the place Tom had built for her. But she also felt dread. Insecurity began to take her over because there were things that didn’t add up.
As far as she knew, Tom had never left London. What did Ireland mean to him? And Dingle? Did he even know the place? He never mentioned it when they were together... How could he have traveled so far to buy the land? When did he design the blueprints?
He was an amazing architect, of course... thought Amy, unable to remove her gaze from the photograph of the Butterfly. Tom had always refused to work on modern buildings. He was in love with the charm of old stone houses, with small windows and homely porches, were he dreamed of looking at stunning views. Without a doubt, that design could only be his... only he could have build such a house. With a view to the ocean, exactly as they had dreamed when they were little. Amy remembered the conversation they had when they were around thirteen years-old. Back then they enjoyed staying by the swings at twilight, when there was no one left in the park.
“Tom... where would you like to live when you’re older?” asked Amy, shaking nervously her long skinny legs, pushing herself on the swing.
“In a stone house with a view of the ocean,” smiled young Tom, handsome and tall, with a pimple here and there.
“Why? Wouldn’t you rather live in London?”
“Bah! That’s too common. We will live in a house I will build myself for you in some remote island.
Amy smiled. She had completely forgotten about that conversation until now. And suddenly, everything made sense. Tom never stopped surprising her and Amy felt like the luckiest woman in the world for having had the opportunity of meeting an extraordinary man like him, unique, even if he was gone. She smoked a cigarette looking outside her window, unafraid of being watched. She began to wonder about the possibility of leaving the newspaper and moving to the island. She owned a house now! She still couldn’t believe that... She could write. She had always dreamed of running away to a place like that to write a novel. With the money she had saved, she might allow herself to do it, if only for a year. And afterwards, she would figure it out. She was convinced that, given the situation, Steve would receive her again in the paper. Her imagination began to soar as she took a drag of her cigarette. Was it possible that Tom had foreseen that future? Had he known? If he had, he had made very good plans about it.
Amy lied on her couch willing to take a nap that would take her to Tom.
“Talk to me, Tom... talk to me...” she whispered before closing her eyes and falling into a deep sleep she would not woke from until next morning.
The stage for this dream wasn’t a tunnel. Neither was it a gray and deserted field. Amy found herself by the edge of a cliff. The waves of the sea clashed with force against the rocks, and a butterfly settled on her shoulder.
It was of a fierce red color. When the butterfly began to flutter, more butterflies came to join it. They were multi-colored. Amy ran away scared towards the interior of what looked like a cold and humid cave. But the butterflies followed her, loud and unbearable noises took over her dream and Tom... Tom didn’t show up. However, his voice repeated over and over:
“Before going in, make sure to know the way out. Before going in, make sure to know the way out. Before going in, make sure to know the way out. Before...”
Amy woke up on the couch, sweaty and breathless, at six o’clock in the morning.
“This wasn’t what I was hoping for, Tom...” she said with a sleepy and coarse voice.
As soon as she arrived to her office, Amy asked to see Steve, who received her with a broad and warm smile as he usually did.
“I want to tell you something important, Steve. I’m quitting.” said Amy, bluntly.
“Excuse me? Why?” asked Steve, used to his writer’s directness. He had always assumed she spoke that way to avoid having to say too much. But still, he began to worry about the possibility that her sudden departure was caused by him and the dinner they had shared so many days ago.
“It’s hard to explain, so I’ll be brief. I’m leaving London, I’m moving to Dingle, in Ireland.”
“I’ve never heard of it. Wow... what are you going to do there?”
“I’m going to write my first novel,” answered Amy, for the first time with a smile on her face.
“Would you consider to keep working for the newspaper? I imagine they have Internet in Dingle, and we could communicate through Skype, or email if you prefer”.
Amy hadn’t considered that possibility. She would keep receiving her salary, and she would not have to leave her house. It was exactly what she wanted.
“Could I work from there? From home?”
Steve nodded.
“Your salary would remain the same. Although, you would still have to come at least once a year, or travel if an article requires it. Would you be okay with that?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then I’m glad that you’ll keep working with us. And I wish you good luck in... where did you say you were going?”
“Dingle. Actually, like fifteen kilometers away from it... in a house by a cliff.”
“Sounds amazing,” said Steve, happy to see that Amy was being so talkative about her future. “When are you leaving?”
“In a fortnight
, I hope. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?” she laughed, nervous.
“It doesn’t, if that’s what you really want,” answered Steve reassuringly.
Amy nodded, thinking of Tom. If she had told Steve the whole story, he would have thought she was crazy. Or that she was stuck in her past. A past in which Tom had carefully planned Amy’s future. At least, that’s what she thought.
CHAPTER 5
Back in London, Mrs. Clark didn’t go out to pick up her husband’s breakfast because she was feeling rather ill. It’s your age said Mr. Clark, who would not eat his delicious brioshe that morning. In the apartment in front of theirs, Stuart wrote the last chapter of a new novel, which no publishing house would buy. He should hurry, if he wanted to make it to his job on time. In 2ª, the happy couple was arranging the twins’ clothes. The due date was coming closer, and they had to hurry if they didn’t want it to catch them by surprise. The kids of late Pamela Harrison were getting desperate. 2B still hadn’t sold. No one seemed to like it, and the lack of an elevator seemed to be a great inconvenience. In 3A, Laura Thompson was arguing as usual with her adolescent kid Charles, once again he was playing his music too loud. She was getting ready to go work in the saloon once more, were she would stare at the pictures that reminded her of better days...
None of this people had noticed that 3B was empty. In fact, it was as if it had always been that way. Amy Campbell would never run down the stairs in a hurry at 8 in the morning, and she would not climb them up at 5:30 in the afternoon. Amy Campbell, the neighbour no one met, had vanished.
DINGLE, IRELAND. 2015.
Dingle welcomed Amy with dark clouds and the threat of a big storm. She cursed herself for buying a small convertible with a hood she couldn’t control. Even though she was anxious to meet the place that would be her new home, she stopped in the town to buy some food. Before getting inside the car, as if she was refusing to abandon the calm streets of Dingle, she went inside Café Liteartha, in Dykegate Street. It was impossible to get lost in this homely and small town, so different from London, that had rapidly enamored Amy. Café Liteartha too managed to charm her. Surrounded by books, she drank a cup of coffee with milk that an old man served for her in a very peculiar way. Amy didn’t pay much attention to him, concentrated in avoiding the curious glances of the people in the coffee house. There weren’t too many people there, surely the people of Dingle felt curious of the presence of someone new among them.
“People have been acting weirdly lately... pay no heed.”
A middle aged man sat in the table next to Amy. She nodded, determined to discourage him from having a conversation and leave as soon as she had finished her coffee. But the man kept staring at her. He was waiting for an answer he would not receive.
“Paul!” cried the voice of a young woman, from the other side of the coffee house. “Stop flirting with pretty ladies!”
Amy stared at the girl who was screaming at Paul, smiling. She was on her early twenties, as jovial as she had once been. It was like staring at herself, ten years earlier. The man smiled and winked at Amy. He was very attractive. He had a broad back and strong arms, and his hands were stained of paint of many different colors. His hair was dark brown, he had a light beard and honey colored eyes that stared at Amy with curiosity.
“You don’t say much, do you?” said Paul, smiling.
“Nice to meet you, Paul,” smiled back Amy.
She stood up and left, still looking at Paul, and walked through the coffee shop’s door and towards her car. The sky was even grayer and she tried to close the hood once again, sitting in her car, to protect herself from the incoming rain. She heard how someone hit the hood of the car, and suddenly it worked.
“What did you do?” asked Amy, descending from her vehicle.
“My aunt has a similar car,” answered the girl from the coffee house. “My name is Ruby Anderson.”
“Amy Campbell,” Amy introduced herself with a smile.
“Tourist?”
“No. I moved fifteen kilometers from here, in a house I don’t even know yet...”
“Could it be the Butterfly?”
“Yes, that one.”
“Oh, wow!” exclaimed Ruby with enthusiasm. “We’ll be seeing each other around, then, Amy. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too, Ruby. And thank you.”
Finding the way to the Butterfly was easy. Amy had studied the maps with attention and she knew that after arriving to the touristic area of Fort Dunbeg, situated by a cliff that faced the south of Mount Eagle, and was full with ruins, rocks and artificial hills, she had to turn right. She could see her new home in the distance. Even lonelier and lost than it looked in the photograph that Tanner had shown her.
Butterfly was expecting her with open arms and a badge on the entrance, in which a beautiful red butterfly was engraved, honoring its name. It was the same one Amy had dreamed of before. A chill went through her body, but she remained positive. Butterfly was a beautiful stone house with small windows looking over the cliff. And the sea... its waves hit hard the rocks on the shore. It was so cold. Amy zipped-up her black leather jacket and began to take her belongings from the trunk of her car. She left everything in the porch, covered by wooden planks in front of the privileged views of the sea and the green mountains. When she walked into the house, she was surprised to find it furnished. The furniture was rustic, right of Tom’s taste. Amy walked slowly, stepping unsure on the wooden floors. The house was luminous, despite the bad weather. Right by the entrance, to the left, was a wide American kitchen, and on the right there was a big living room with a comfortable looking beige couch, and a TV on the stone wall. The chimney gave the room a warm and cozy look, and so did every corner of the place Amy was beginning to embrace as her new home. By the living room, a sliding door opened up to a small interior garden surrounded by a stone wall covered by weed, where the undiscussed protagonist was a huge weeping willow. It was Amy’s favorite tree, and she began to cry of excitement as soon as she saw it, and she walk towards it to touch its leafy lower branches. She wanted to take off her shoes and run over the green and wet grass. It was beginning to rain, and the house on the cliff that Tom had built for her looked beautiful, with its own special charm.
There was a small hall in the lower floor that led to a full bathroom and a small studio, with walls covered by built-in shelfs. By the entrance, a wooden desk with a laptop sat right in front of the biggest window with a view of the ocean, which would provide Amy with any inspiration she might need to write a great story. If was as if Tom, from beyond, had planned her future. A future he knew he would not take part of.
She climbed the stairs. A wide hall opened up to two bedrooms and a huge bathroom with a Jacuzzi, which also had a view of the ocean. Amy felt she was in paradise, still unable to believe she was truly the owner of the Butterfly. There was nothing missing. Tom had thought of everything and had spent a fortune on making it true.
She still had a lot of things to do, even though the house seemed ready to be lived on. By the next day, the moving truck would arrive with all of her belongings, and only then would she be able to begin with the difficult task of moving in, which she had already begun when she emptied her apartment in London.
Amy made herself some tea and stepped out to the porch, where she sat on a swing that reminded her of the afternoons she had spent with Tom, contemplating the view and the rain. A rain that would not stop for hours, and that spread a wonderful aroma that would become an addiction to Amy with the passing of time. A few minutes later, she heard a car that stopped near her house, and the steps of someone who approached. A middle aged man who looked remarkably like Tanner approached her.
“Good afternoon. Miss Campbell?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“My name is Derek Harrison; I work with mister Tanner. I just came by to make sure everything is okay.”
“Everything is perfect,” answered Amy drily, showing that she was not looking forward to having compan
y.
“I’m glad. So, you haven’t had any issue? Is everything that Tom planned to your liking?” he insisted. Amy felt a stung in her heart hearing Tom’s name from someone else’s mouth.
“Can I ask you a question?” Harrison nodded, obliging. “How did you know Tom? When did he come here?”
Derek remained silent for a couple of seconds that seem to stretch on forever, and that Amy found strange. She began to feel suspicious and thought, once more, that something was amiss.
“See, I can’t tell for sure. I never spoke to him. The owner of this land died shortly after Tom bought it and...” he began to stammer, trying to avoid giving Amy a straight answer that she thought he might not have. “Well, the last thing I heard was that Tom’s colleague, an architect, came from Paris to make sure that the house was being built precisely as it was on the blueprints, when he received the Levy’s inheritance.
“Tom didn’t have a colleague from Paris.”
“Didn’t he? I think he did, miss Campbell. Mister... what was he called? God, I can’t remember... We don’t always know everything about our loved ones, don’t you think?” questioned Derek, winking at her and stroking his thick white mustache.
“Your presence here has disturbed me, Mr. Harrison” said Amy honestly.
“I didn’t mean to bother you. At all. Keep enjoying the afternoon, it is a privilege to live here. Take care.”
Derek Harrison opened his umbrella and left the same way he had arrived. Amy hoped she would never have to see him again. He had creeped her out for some reason, and his answers hadn’t cleared up the doubts she had about the house. About Tom and his plans before he died. She shrugged and wondered if she had made the right choice by moving in, and chose to go investigate the laptop she had seen before.
When she turned it on, a Word file opened up automatically.
You didn’t see this one coming, did you, Amy?
I imagine many years have passed since I left. Forgive me. You know my life has always been complicated... but if there was something I liked about my mind, it was that it allowed me to see beyond everything we know. I have not just seen massacres, blood, death and natural disasters... nightmares with butterflies or horrors I hope your eyes will never have to witness. I could also see the future, and I saw you in it... gorgeous, as usual. And I saw you in this house, Amy... in this corner, specially created for you to become the writer of the next big best seller. Here is were you will begin your masterpiece. I know. I saw it. But it is no good to tell people about their futures, you know? We all have our own destiny, and if we knew it, we might be able to change it, transform it or make it vanish. Let’s not fight it, Amy... often, it can surprise us, and we should let it do so.
Where Oblivion Dwells Page 3