House of the Golden Butterfly

by B. Groves

  She felt around the nearest wall but found no other light switches. Disappointed she held out her cell phone with a flashlight app and tried to find something to make the eerie shadows retreat into their corners.

  Disturbed dust flew in front of the small light. She sniffled from the dust now clogging her nose and tried to ignore the light playing tricks with her eyes. She shined her flashlight around the attic. The shadows danced around as if upset she had disturbed their sleep.

  Claire cursed her overactive imagination, knowing she was only looking at old furniture and boxes.

  The lone window was covered with a heavy sheet of plastic and that muted the only natural light coming from the outside.

  Her flashlight found a string hanging from a lone bulb on the ceiling.

  Claire pulled the string and was relieved when the attic was bathed with a bright light.

  All the eerie shadows disappeared, and Claire perked her ears trying to listen for any stray animals that might have made their home in the room over the years.

  She remembered when she was about ten years old and discovered a raccoon living in Mary and Clay’s attic by accident. She was lucky it didn’t bite her, but ever since Claire had an irrational fear of raccoons. She never again ventured into her grandparent’s attic alone.

  Not hearing any movement, Claire stomped her feet, and then stood still listening for any unusual movement.

  She stomped and then stopped. Stomped one more time and then stopped. She knew she didn’t need to overdo it, but after that raccoon incident, she wouldn’t take any chances.

  The only sound that greeted her was the occasional whistle from the breeze outside.

  Satisfied, Claire was amazed at the space. She chuckled. No, she shouldn’t be surprised.

  There was room to stand up straight and move around without killing one’s back and shoulders.

  This attic may have been used as a servant’s quarters in the past.

  And, she was right.

  Claire looked to her left and found a small free-standing iron stove with the pipe looping up through the roof.

  She took a few steps further and found a sink, an old porcelain toilet, and a washbasin next to the stove. Some dusty towels sat inside the sink.

  She cringed thinking about living up in an attic to serve a family for months, perhaps years.

  Living in this space must have been unbearable in the summer and you’d freeze to death in the winter if you didn’t mind the stove.

  Claire shook off the awful thoughts of poor young women having to live in conditions like this, all courtesy of her family.

  She turned to her right and found a bed sitting in a corner.

  She wasn’t surprised. The stove and sink told her someone had lived in this part of the house at one point.

  Claire moved closer to the bed, seeing the blanket was fraying at the edges as the years passed.

  A layer of dust covered the bed as she ran her fingers over the fabric, noting it was made of a heavy wool.

  She remembered Mary had been a stickler for using pure products for her wardrobe. She never liked synthetic fabrics like polyester were never welcome in her home and Mary never comprised Claire’s clothing either. Claire didn’t like it because she felt it limited her clothing choices, but as she grew older she appreciated Mary’s opinion.

  Claire knew how to tell if it was real or not. It was old, but not that old and didn’t feel like pure wool from her experience.

  She flipped up the side of the blanket—sneezing from the dust—and found the tag. If this blanket had been handmade, there wouldn’t have been a tag, and the edges wouldn’t be sewn like they came from a factory.

  She had to squint to read the tag. She shined her flashlight over the tag to read the fine print.

  Just as she thought, it was synthetic wool and made in China.

  Claire’s brow furrowed in confusion as she let the blanket drop back onto the bed.

  Did Rose have servants recently? Did she make them live up here?

  Claire searched her mind. Her thoughts turned to David and how he died.

  Claire’s hand shook as she thought of the dark figure haunting her dreams every time she saw David.

  She couldn’t make out a face, or a body, but someone else was in the house when David died.

  The conclusion made Claire take one step closer to finding her brother and putting him to rest forever.

  She shivered thinking it would bring her one step closer to find his murderer, too.

  Claire’s hands were downright trembling when she lifted the blanket again, hoping to find some a clue within the bed.

  She tore the pillowcase from the lone pillow thrown on top of the bed. Nothing. She lifted the mattress and pulled the sheets off.

  Nothing that gave away the person who may have lived in the attic until recently.

  Frustrated, she made the bed the way she found it.

  After she did that, she sat down as her eyes adjusted to the room. There were boxes and trunks placed neatly on each side of the attic.

  She spotted an old rocking chair and some hat boxes sitting on pine shelves.

  Wires snaked around the wooden beams and she realized the alarm system was set up in here because the wires were covered in plastic and looked brand new, unlike the rest of the house.

  Claire stood up and walked over to the first box she could grab. She opened it and found old Christmas decorations inside. Digging through it, she out of the ordinary. Just the usual twinkling lights, balls, and fake holly. She even found the tacky Styrofoam snowman.

  She pushed that box aside and found another box with a fake Christmas tree. Nothing else.

  Pushing that box aside, she found another box with other various holiday decorations like Easter and Thanksgiving.

  Claire dragged another one into the middle of the aisle and opened it.

  She found older clothes inside. She pulled out a few blouses, shirts, and jeans.

  She realized they were from the not so distant past, and based on the design, they came right out of the 1980s.

  They were a smaller size and Claire realized these were her mother’s clothes.

  She pulled more shirts out when she found a big plastic bag labeled the coroner’s office on it.

  Claire placed a hand over her mouth and closed her eyes for a moment while the emotions surfaced, this time they were more real than ever.

  She lifted the bag out of the box with her free hand and noticed it was heavy.

  Rose never cleaned out this bag.

  Claire didn’t know if she wanted to open it. She thought about putting it back inside the box and opening it later, but curiosity got the better of her.

  She opened it and the smell of an old copper penny hit her nose.

  She dropped it on the floor turned away while she tried to gather the courage to dig deeper into the bag. That smell… it was blood.

  Once she gathered herself, she turned back to the bag and dug through it, while keeping her emotions from exploding.

  She pulled out a pair of brown dress pants with smatterings of blood. Then she pulled out a white, chiffon blouse with a large stain of blood on the left side.

  Claire wanted to burst into tears. Her parents were coming home from a party in the mountains when their car veered off the road and into a ravine. The investigation said her father lost control of the car when it hit a patch of black ice.

  They weren’t found for twenty-four hours after Rose reported them missing when they didn’t come home to pick up their children.

  She remembered Mary telling her how the wait to hear the news was excruciating and when she heard Rose screaming over the phone she knew her only son was dead.

  She was touching a piece of her mother, a piece of history, and a piece of her mother’s last moments on Earth.

  Claire then dug further into the bag and found a pair of men’s dress pants and a polo shirt.

  Both were the same as her mother’s and stained with
blood.

  She then pulled out two jackets, both stained, and gloves along with a pair of high heels and penny loafers. The shoes hadn’t been stained, but they were flattened into grotesque shapes that made Claire nauseous as she tried to picture what they looked like when they died.

  Claire tried picturing it, but she had no memory of the funerals. Hell, she didn’t even know if they were an open or closed casket. Mary and Clay never gave her details.

  Claire felt the anger rise within her belly thinking about Rose keeping these items in a bad and inside the attic.

  Her parents’ last moments thrown carelessly into a corner and not shown the respect they deserved.

  Claire knew she shouldn’t be angry with her family. They were all dead and there was nothing more to say, but the mysteries of her brother were growing deeper as she searched.

  Claire pulled out one last item.

  A small red leather purse with a wallet inside.

  She couldn’t find another wallet and remembered Mary had her father’s last driver’s license destroyed.

  Claire sifted through the small purse and found some dried lip-gloss, some change, and nail clippers.

  Claire opened the wallet to see a picture of herself and her brother right inside.

  She sat back on the floor and stared at the picture for a while.

  She was wearing a red dress while holding David on a sofa she couldn’t picture in her mind.

  She took the picture out of the window and turned it over.

  My loves 1991 David 3 weeks, Claire 3 years

  Claire smiled at the simple words handwritten on the back.

  She set the picture aside knowing her mother would want her to have it and searched for more pictures.

  She found her mom with her Rose and Arthur and with other family members she didn’t recognize.

  The last picture was of two young girls.

  Claire frowned.

  She turned the picture over and found Janie and Sue written on the back with the year 1966.

  Claire recognized her mother but didn’t recognize the other girl.

  The other young girl had dark hair but resembled her mother. The other girl was a few years older and taller than her mother too.

  Was this a cousin? An old friend from school?

  Claire wondered if she had any other surviving family members.

  George told her that no one came to claim the house when he couldn’t locate her, although he tried to find other living family members.

  She didn’t know the last name of the girl.

  Claire placed the picture aside. She kept it and to see if she could discover anything else about this Sue person and maybe contact her if she were still in town and even still alive.

  Claire searched the wallet but only found her mother’s last driver’s license, two credit cards, and some old receipts.

  Claire set the purse and wallet aside and searched the bag finding nothing else inside.

  It was obvious her father’s things had been given back to Mary and Clay except for his clothes.

  Claire knew the clothes were ruined and not worth saving. She placed the items back into the bag and put it into the box.

  She needed to decide what to do with that stuff later and thought about burning it.

  Claire checked her phone and found she still had time.

  She pulled out another box from a corner and opened that one.

  Inside was boy’s clothing. Claire sifted through them finding clothing from infancy up until toddler. She found a small blanket with David’s name embroidered on it.

  This was a good find.

  Claire held her brother’s clothes for a few moments to let the emotions overtake her.

  Her heart broke all over again holding them within her hands.

  She turned around instinctively expecting the apparition of her brother to appear behind her, but nothing happened.

  “Oh, David,” She murmured. “Why?”

  Claire blinked back tears as she held up a tiny pair of pants and then small sneakers.

  She wiped her eyes and dug further down and found a baby blue photo album at the bottom.

  She lifted it out and opened it to find the first picture of David in the hospital with his name engraved on the picture.

  The second one was her dad holding David in the hospital. Then her mother in the hospital bed with Claire sitting on the edge curiously looking over her new baby brother.

  Claire smiled at the picture and the look on her face.

  She laughed lowly when she found one of her Dad changing David’s diaper with a disgusted look etched on his features.

  She flipped through more pictures and found some of both her and her brother as he grew older.

  She found the pictures abruptly stopped in the middle of the album.

  It was like a punch in the face knowing the pictures stopped because her brother never grew up, never experienced life.

  And why not?

  Who killed her brother? Was it Rose? Were her memories wrong?

  Claire placed the album in her lap and tried to remember. She was on the cusp of the darkness. All she needed was to step through the door and she’d find her answers.

  Who and why would they kill her sweet baby brother?

  Why?

  Claire looked down at the photo album again and found as she flipped through more pages she came upon old newspaper articles about David’s disappearance.

  These were nothing new to her.

  She closed the album and set it aside, planning on taking that back to her room.

  Claire sat on the floor and ran her fingers through her hair with her elbows at her knees.

  She stared at the walls for a long time absorbing all she’d found in such a short period of time.

  Her world and her illusions of her family shattered when she was first made aware of the face in the window.

  How could she possibly remember who the dark figure was?

  Claire turned again hoping to catch a glimpse her brother, but he was nowhere in sight and she left the golden butterfly brooch on her nightstand.

  He kept telling her to dig, and this would be the key to unlocking the mysterious darkness where her memories should be.

  Claire reached for one last box and opened it. After this box, she needed to go back downstairs and get ready for Mac.

  But, she didn’t want to stop trying to find her answers.

  She looked inside the box and found old photographs set inside either photo albums or other books.

  Most of them were old, like almost a century old and most were either torn or yellowed.

  Claire had to squint to make out faces within the pictures.

  Claire’s determination was faltering and she knew it was time to stop for the day. She placed the albums back inside the box and realized there was an old recipe book inside.

  She reached for it and found the name Martha’s Cookbook inside the front cover.

  Martha was Rose’s mother. So, this was her great-grandmother’s cookbook.

  Claire flipped through the pages and found some recipes she’d love to try one day.

  This cookbook was in better shape than most of the pictures in the box, so she decided she would take that with her too.

  She was finishing up glancing at the recipes when one caught her eye.

  It was a recipe for strawberry jam with a special ingredient.

  “Huh,” Claire muttered.

  She never heard of adding butter to jam before and from Martha’s notes it was supposed to give it a richer flavor and tame the tartness.

  Claire thought of Shirley and her strawberry jam inside her doughnuts and smiled.

  Maybe they had the same family secret recipe she thought with a smile.

  Claire closed the book and gathered all the items she wanted to take downstairs with her.

  She didn’t realize how steep the steps were until she was balancing all her items while trying to descend the staircase. She drop
ped the stuff when she tried to shut off the light.

  She breathed a sigh of relief when she made it without breaking an ankle and set the stuff on her desk in her room.

  She would look through more of it later. She had plenty of time to go through each item and try to find more clues about her family and her past.

  She checked her phone and frowned. She had plenty of time before Mac would arrive with her dinner.

  Claire ventured onto the property again and look inside the wooden tool shed.

  On her way outside she grabbed her keys since the shed was locked with a padlock, which George mailed to her with the house keys.

  She opened the sliding glass doors and made her way to the tool shed on the other side of the property ignoring the trail that led to the river.

  As Claire walked through the yard she tried to spot uneven ground, places where David might have been buried.

  She wished now he would have appeared to her again and given her a straight answer about where he was located.

  She shook her head and let out a breath. Did she want to believe David was murdered? Did she want to discover that her brother’s body was buried somewhere in this yard for over twenty years?

  No proper burial, no funeral, just a dead wreath placed on the boulder where it was all a lie.

  Or was it?

  Claire went back and forth in her mind.

  How could she think this was all real? The ghost of her own brother appearing to her, telling her he was not in the river after all, but here on Kinsey house property.

  Claire shook as she stopped in front of the shed. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply to calm her growing anxiety. Did she want to know the truth? Did she want to find David’s remains?

  But, David wasn’t resting in peace, she reasoned. If he was, then he wouldn’t be giving her visits and crying over how he can’t cross over to their parents.

  Claire lowered her head and felt her heart shattering into small pieces over David’s despair.

  No child deserved that fate, and certainly not her brother.

  As she tried calming the turmoil raging inside of her, Claire found a new conviction to find him and put him to rest so she could move on with her life and fill in the gaps of her memories.