A Mosaic of Wings

by Kimberly Duffy

  She flicked her finger against his chin. “Because it’s unseemly.”

  “Since when have you been worried about that?”

  She opened her mouth but could find no words to refute him. It was true. She’d spent her entire life flouting convention. Why stop now? And, oh, she wanted to know what it felt like to be draped in silk. No corsets, petticoats, or layers and layers between her and the fabric.

  She stood and nodded. “Okay.”

  Owen sat up straight. “Really? You’re really going to try it on?”

  “Yes. And maybe, when I’m done, you’ll try on a dhoti.” She flounced to the door the child and woman had disappeared behind, motioning her to follow, then said, “I’d love to see you in one, Owen.”

  She shut the door behind her, blocking out the sound of his choking laughter.

  The room behind the shop was small, the walls covered in rugs. A large mirror dominated the back, a small stool set beside it. Lamps in the corners of the room cast shadows across the polished wood floor. The shopkeeper handed the child the sari and began unbuttoning Nora’s bodice as she made clucking noises and muttered beneath her breath.

  “What is she saying?” Nora asked.

  The girl shrugged. “That English women wear too many clothes. It’s unnatural and doesn’t allow your skin to breathe.”

  “I’m American,” Nora said. Her skirt was unhooked and fell to her feet. She still wore her corset, chemise, petticoat, and stockings, but she felt lighter already.

  With each layer removed, she inhaled more deeply. And then she stood naked, free of constraints. She pushed her arms through the short sleeves of a blouse that didn’t reach her navel. She stepped into a white linen skirt. Then she allowed herself to be wrapped in silk like an Egyptian mummy.

  Finally, the shopkeeper stepped out of the way, and Nora saw her reflection.

  Only . . . it wasn’t really her. It was a specter—a beautiful woman from another place. She approached the mirror, the sliding of silk against the exposed strip of her back and torso raising the hairs on her arms. It was almost more sensual than being unclothed. But it looked right on her. This garment was close in shade to her ridiculous graduation dinner dress, but it sheathed her body in elegant lines instead of consuming her in froth and froufrou. It made her look taller, somehow. Gracefully exquisite. She ran her hand down her torso, feeling the dip of her waist and shallow of her belly button. She wondered if this other she had been inside her all the time. Had she been waiting to be released? Waiting for an opportunity to show her face?

  Waiting to feel alive. Here, in India.

  Living a life she’d never dreamed of. A life that split the chrysalis—of Ithaca, the journal, and Cornell—freeing her to be what she was always meant to be. After all this, could she return to her life, sitting behind a desk and writing about insects instead of studying them?

  Nora pulled out the pin attaching the pleats of the sari to the underskirt. She unwrapped the silk from around and around her waist and tugged it off, allowing herself one moment to enjoy the feel of it slipping over her shoulder. She stepped out of the petticoat and unhooked the snaps traveling up the blouse.

  She reached for her clothing piled atop the table behind her. “Thank you for letting me try your beautiful clothes, but I can’t possibly purchase them. I would like some scarves, though.”

  She wouldn’t indulge in this silly experiment. It wouldn’t lead to discovery or knowledge. It only made her question her priorities.

  She needed to focus on what truly mattered, and that was securing the scholarship and control of the journal. She owed it to her father to keep his memory alive through the publication he’d loved.

  India was a means to an end. She’d wrapped herself in a silk chrysalis, but instead of a butterfly, she found herself facing a parasite—the realization that once she shed all tethers to home, she no longer missed it. No longer cared for toast and jam at breakfast. No longer wanted to return to school or tie herself to a floundering scientific journal.

  No, she wanted to stay in India and drink tea grown in the hills, wear silk, and watch butterflies grow with Owen.

  And she couldn’t have that. Not when she had obligations to fulfill and guilt tethering her to a memory she’d rather forget.

  Nora purchased five fringed scarves made of fine wool. They didn’t sing a siren’s song, calling her to forsake her plans. They didn’t tumble over her body and pull her toward desires best left concealed. But they were beautiful and would make lovely gifts for the women in her life.

  She carefully folded them into squares and placed them in her rucksack. Slinging the bag over her shoulder, she left the store without a glance at the bewildered shopkeeper, her daughter with the all-too-wise eyes, or Owen.

  “Where are we headed next?” she asked when he caught up with her.

  “It’s a surprise. I heard about it last week, and I think you’ll love it.”

  He waved down a mattu vandi, and the driver forced his oxen to a stop. The wiry man, wearing white knee-length breeches, a long shirt, and a wide belt at his waist, haggled for a moment with Owen.

  A shout drew Nora’s attention. Turning, she saw the child from the sari shop running toward her, wide feet beating against the dusty ground. “Akka! I have this for you.” She thrust a paper-wrapped parcel into Nora’s hands. “I know the customs are different. I learned that at school. But you loved it.”

  Nora unwrapped the bundle while the child looked on, eagerness making her eyes sparkle. Inside lay a ribbon made from the purple sari, just a two-inch-wide strip with an embroidered elephant chasing after a tiger.

  It was a small enough part that it didn’t threaten Nora’s ambitions, but large enough to remind her of the moment she first discovered the woman hiding beneath all her layers and walls. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  She removed her hat, pulled the three large pins from her proper knot at the crown of her head, and drew the curtain of hair around the front of her shoulder. With nimble fingers, she braided the length of it and tied the ribbon at the end, letting the large loops and drooping tails rest against her waist.

  “Are you ready?” Owen asked.

  With a gentle touch, Nora stroked the girl’s cheek and accepted a smile. Then she turned and took Owen’s hand as he helped her into the rickety curtained box.

  As the oxen took off in a lumbering walk, she could feel Owen’s eyes on her. She stroked the loops of the sari bow.

  “Your hair looks pretty like that.” He took the bow from her and held it against her cheek. “It’s a good color on you.” Dropping it, he leaned against the seat back and closed his eyes. “I still want to see you in it.”

  The tension in Nora’s chest released, and her shoulders relaxed. She pushed away all thoughts of desires and dreams and journals. “That’s never going to happen, Owen Epps.”

  He laughed, and Nora spent the remainder of the ride to their secret destination peeking out through the curtains while Owen sat with his elbow propped against the side of the cart, chin in hand, as he snoozed.

  They took Bazaar Road past the star-shaped Berijam Lake to Ghat Road, where their driver took them up and down hills covered in dense vegetation. The cart bounced, and Owen sat up, blinking sleep from his eyes.

  Nora heard the thunder before seeing anything. Its familiar roar drew her halfway off her seat, and shoving the curtain aside, she gasped, delighted that Owen knew enough about her to know she’d love this. She grabbed his hand and waited, tapping her feet against the cart’s floor until they stopped.

  Before Owen could climb down and offer his assistance, Nora leapt to the ground and darted toward the sound. She pushed through brush and bushes, startling a macaque, who chided her with shrieks and trills.

  And then, finally, she stood before a waterfall ten times as high as Cascadilla Falls. She’d been to Niagara Falls before her father’s death, and she thought this might even be higher than that great wonder.

  The pebbles be
neath her feet shifted as she approached the falls. By the time Owen slipped into view, she’d hopped from one large stone to another across the shallow pool and stood facing the tumbling water. She smiled into the fine mist it sprayed across her face. It wasn’t a heavy fall, though she imagined it would be during the monsoon, but the water glowed silver, and Nora closed her eyes, becoming reacquainted with this cousin to her beloved Ithaca waterfall.

  When she opened them again, Owen sat at the edge of the grass surrounding the water, watching her with a satisfied smile. “Happy?”

  She ducked her head and bit her lip, feeling unaccountably shy.

  “Come sit by me,” he said.

  Grabbing fistfuls of her skirt, she stepped back over the rocks and sat beside him. “Thank you for this.”

  He smiled and handed over her rucksack, which she’d left in the cart in her haste to see the waterfall. She set it aside, and her stomach growled. “It feels like hours since we ate the jalebi.”

  “I’m prepared for hunger.” He lifted the strap of his bag over his head and pushed aside the flap. He pulled out a paper-wrapped parcel and, peeling back the layers, revealed a triangular pastry. “Pallavi calls them samosa and said they’re perfect picnic food. And I paid the karar for the day, so we can stay as long as we like. I’ve heard there is some great insect biodiversity here.”

  They grew quiet as they munched on the spicy potato-stuffed lunch. A macaque inched toward them, and Nora threw it a handful of crumbs. It grabbed for the food with dexterous fingers, then bared its teeth at her and bounded away. Ungrateful animal.

  A butterfly flew in lazy circles above them before landing on a nearby rock about six feet away. Its oddly colored wings drew Nora to her feet. She narrowed her eyes, straining to see it.

  “What is it?” Owen asked.

  “That butterfly . . .” She took a few steps toward it, and it left its perch. She followed it toward the tree line, making sure not to lose it.

  “It’s only a cruiser. We have specimens of every subspecies already.”

  “Yes, but something about this one is different.” She glanced at him, and he must have seen something in her expression, because his eyes widened, and he jumped to his feet.

  “An undiscovered species?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The butterfly rested on the trunk of a flowering crape myrtle. Nora took another step toward it, careful not to make any noise. The butterfly lifted off the trunk, dropping its forewings, and she gasped. She lunged forward, pinching the insect’s wings between her fingers, quickly immobilized it, and hurried back to Owen.

  “Look,” she said, falling to her knees. He crouched behind her and peered over her shoulder. She opened her fingers, revealing the butterfly in her cupped palm. “Do you remember Professor Comstock’s lecture on sexual dimorphism?”

  Owen grunted and leaned even farther over her, his ear brushing her cheek. She heard his even breathing and matched her own exhalations to his.

  She pressed her pointer finger to the middle of the butterfly’s fuzzy thorax. “He mentioned an anomaly called gynandromorphism. Do you recall?”

  “That class was months ago. How do you remember anything he said?”

  “It was interesting. Look at it, Owen. It’s incredible. I never thought I’d get to see one.”

  She tilted her hand so they could peer at its hind end. Owen’s eyes widened. “It only has one clasper. On the male side.”

  She grinned and admired its bilateral asymmetry. The Vindula erota’s dimorphic coloring made it easy to catch the deviation. One wing featured the male’s orange wings and black markings, the other the subtle green, blue, and browns of a female. It was a random aberration that produced a highly collectable, and uncommon, specimen.

  If she didn’t discover a new species, she could use the gynandromorph as the basis of her lecture. “Give me the kill jar from my rucksack.”

  When Owen headed toward her dropped bag, Nora pulled a thin handkerchief from where she’d tucked it into her sleeve that morning. Using her teeth, she tore it in half and dipped it in the tepid water of the stream. He returned as she was squeezing it out.

  “Here. I’m glad you thought to bring your bag with you.” He held the jar toward her.

  “I bring my bag everywhere. Just in case.” She smiled and dropped the damp handkerchief into the jar. She didn’t want to risk the butterfly growing brittle and breaking before she had the chance to mount it. Then she slipped the insect into the jar and waited for the cyanide to do its work.

  “It’s kind of sad, isn’t it?” Owen asked. “It doesn’t know what it is or how to behave. It’s trapped between two different worlds, just as paralyzed as it was a moment ago.”

  A dull ache took hold of Nora’s throat, and tears made her nose burn. What a strange thing, commiserating with an insect over a shared experience.

  Chapter

  Sixteen

  When they walked back into camp that evening, William and Leonard were huddled around Owen’s shelf of specimens. Their murmured conversation carried across the yard.

  “Such a shame,” Leonard said. “He’s had no luck getting this butterfly to hatch.”

  Beside Nora, Owen groaned. “Another tachinid. I gathered half a dozen caterpillars, and now I only have one left. I was hoping at least one would make it to maturation.” He rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head. “Do you want to draw the pupa, chrysalis, and parasite? If the other hatches a butterfly, you’ll have a great life cycle illustration.”

  She smiled. “Like Maria Merian?” The seventeenth-century naturalist had been the first scientist to draw butterflies on their food source along with the egg, larva, and chrysalis, proving insects didn’t grow from the mud. Nora followed her example whenever given the opportunity. Maybe one day people would credit her with a new scientific process, or even a discovery.

  Owen blinked, giving her a blank stare, and Nora shook her head. Even Maria hadn’t made enough of an impact to be recalled by modern entomology students.

  She trotted to her tent and located an empty mounting board. With practiced efficiency, she mounted her mixed-up butterfly and slid it into a box. Then she grabbed her art supplies and went back outside.

  Owen held the jar containing the spent chrysalis up to the sun. He squinted at it, his brows making a shaggy, untidy seam above his eyes. William and Leonard disappeared into their tents, but Mr. Steed sat on a chair near the fire, peeling a langsat. Nora’s mouth watered. She hadn’t eaten enough at lunch, and the sweet-sour fruit had become a favorite.

  As she passed Mr. Steed, she swiped the last langsat from his lap and tucked it into her palm. He sputtered, but his mouth was too full of fruit to articulate any words, and Nora pretended to not hear him as she approached Owen. Served him right for all the times he’d stolen her fruit.

  “What is it?” Nora set her paint box and sketchbook on the shelf beside the jar containing the remaining cocoon and stretched onto her toes. She poked her thumbnail into the langsat’s thin skin and peeled it off in one complete piece.

  “I have no idea. It’s rather small, isn’t it?”

  She broke off a segment of fruit and took it between her teeth, tugging the flesh from around the bitter pit. She motioned for the jar, settling back flat on her feet when Owen handed it over. Inside, a small hymenoptera buzzed around the jar, bumping against the side in a desperate bid for freedom. The metallic greenish-blue wasp was smaller than any parasitic fly she’d ever seen, but the hole in the side of the chrysalis proved its origin.

  She set the jar on the shelf and tossed another piece of fruit into her mouth. Her teeth met slight resistance before popping through the langsat and spraying the back of her throat with its citrusy juice. She chewed slowly, thinking, then wiped her sticky fingers against her skirt and pulled the cheesecloth from the top of the jar, covering it with her hand so the wasp wouldn’t escape.

  “What are you doing?” Owen asked.

  “I’ve
never seen such a small parasite emerge from a chrysalis. I wonder . . .” She plunged her hand into the jar and pulled it out. She swiftly bound the fabric back atop the jar, trapping the wasp again, then held up her hand, the chrysalis nestled in her palm. “Let’s see what’s inside.”

  Still lounging in the chair, Mr. Steed snorted. “Waste of time.”

  “We have nothing better to do, so we may as well study,” Nora said. “And if my hunch is right, it will be an exciting thing to see.”

  Mr. Steed chewed on the corner of his lip before shrugging and pushing himself up from his chair. “All right. I’m in.”

  Nora thought she heard a note of respect mingling with the curiosity in his voice. Maybe she was finally proving herself to him.

  She lifted her chin and led the two men to the table set up outside the cabin. There, a lidded box held all the necessary entomological tools. She laid the chrysalis down and chose a sharp knife. With a gentle touch, she sliced through the hardened chitin. Using the knife and her free fingers to press open the chrysalis, she saw the small brown fly puparium nestled into a knob of decaying tissue. The puparium was a little larger than an apple seed and sported an exit hole in its side. She laid the knife down and tipped the chrysalis into her hand, freeing the puparium.

  “My father once told me he’d discovered a hyperparasitoid wasp—that is, a wasp that has oviposited inside another parasitic wasp or fly.” She placed the puparium into Mr. Steed’s hand and rolled it to better show off the hole. “The tachinid fly killed the butterfly pupa, and in turn, the hyperparasitic wasp killed the fly, emerging from the chrysalis. There’s not much literature on the phenomenon, but it’s often seen in field research. You have to be looking for it, though.” She pressed her hands to her sternum and sighed, an unrestrained smile twitching her lips.

  “I’ve never heard of it,” Mr. Steed said, “but this is my first time doing field research. My specialty is ecological entomology.”

  He didn’t seem impressed with Nora’s discovery, which she couldn’t understand. He spent his career studying and teaching on how to subdue pests yet found hyperparasites dull? She shook her head and plucked the puparium from him and gave it to Owen, whose focused gaze and prodding fingers offered a more suitable response to their exciting find.