On Shadowed Wings (An Ash Grove Short Story) (2 page)

“In old Gaelic, the same
word—
tiene-dhe—
is believed to have been used both for the
butterfly and for the fire of the gods,” Dr. Sumner explained. “The
ritual fires of Beltane have a sacred quality shared by the
butterfly, which is sometimes held to be the soul of someone who
has died.”

His voice dulled a little there, and Gail had
to give Jim credit for tact: he took up the conversation and easily
steered it away from Dr. Sumner’s wife. “What I was told,” he said,
“is that on that night—Beltane night, I guess—there’s a place where
hundreds of moths hatch from their cocoons at once. There’s some
debate over whether they’re butterflies or moths, actually, because
no one seems to have gotten a picture of them.”

“Hundreds of butterflies,” Gail said. “So
that’s like hundreds of souls.”

“Or hundreds of wishes,” said Joy
unexpectedly. She had entered the room silently and come to stand
beside her dad’s chair.

Absently he kissed the top of her head and
asked, “What do you mean, honey?”

“Gail told me.”

When they turned expectant faces toward her,
Gail said sheepishly, “A friend of mine who’s part Cherokee told me
a story once, and I told it to Joy. If you want a wish to come
true, you catch a butterfly and whisper your wish to it. Because
they don’t make any sound, they can’t tell anyone except the Great
Spirit your wish. When you release the butterfly, it carries the
wish to heaven and to the Great Spirit.”

“What a charming story.” Dr. Sumner was soon
absorbed in the map that Jim had pulled out of his pocket and
unfolded, and Joy, dejected, drifted over to sit by Gail. “So where
is this miraculous butterfly convention held to take place?” Dr.
Sumner asked Jim.

“On the Ash Grove grounds.”

“Ah,” said Dr. Sumner, more coolly. “Of
course. Where everything supernatural supposedly happens, if one
listens to gossip.”

“Is it just gossip, sir?”

To Gail’s amazement, Jim’s expression was
serious. Did he really believe all the crazy stories the townies
told about the school? There were lots of outlandish legends about
the school and its founder, an eccentric named Josiah Cavanaugh who
had founded it almost a century ago. She wouldn’t have thought a
guy with a scientific bent would put any store in them.

Then again, maybe science was at the root of
things. Maybe there was really some strange electromagnetic field
surrounding the campus, or some fringe-science thing, that made
weirdness seem to focus there. Like weather that supposedly only
happened to the campus. Or like the story that had made all the
papers last year, when a woman who supposedly had vanished twenty
years ago as a student there had turned up one day, still looking
as if she was sixteen years old.

“I wish I could help you, but I’m afraid I’ve
never heard of such a phenomenon at Ash Grove,” said Dr. Sumner.
“I’d be careful exploring the grounds at night, by the way,
especially since they’re tearing down the old amphitheater. And in
the more remote parts of campus, help might be a long time coming
if you get into difficulty. Have you found anything promising so
far?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. A nice Diana
fritillary, though.” Jim showed him the photo of the butterfly on
the top of Gail’s head, and the professor raised an eyebrow at
her.

“Thinking of changing boyfriends, Gail?”

Startled, she said, “What?”

Dr. Sumner smiled. It was as close as he came
to laughing anymore. “Local lore has it that when a butterfly lands
on a young woman’s head or clothes she’s about to change
sweethearts. Has Darryl not been behaving himself?”

Gail was very conscious that Jim’s eyes were
on her, and she said more shortly than she meant to, “He’s fine.
I’m supposed to meet him at my house, actually, so unless there’s
anything else you need me for—?”

The professor waved a hand in dismissal. “No,
I won’t keep you any longer. Thank you for helping out, Gail.”

Jim pushed his chair back from the table.
“I’d better be getting along too. Thanks for talking to me, Dr.
Sumner. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

Gail gave Joy a quick goodbye hug and
collected her gardening things. When she and Jim emerged from the
house, she saw a bicycle leaning against a tree. So that was how he
had managed to sneak up on her. “How did you get so interested in
butterflies?” she asked as he walked with her to her house, just
next door.

“Their whole life cycle fascinates me. How
quickly they transform. Have you ever seen a butterfly come out of
its chrysalis?”

She shook her head.

“It’s amazing. It’s like—” He rubbed the back
of his neck as he searched for words. “Well, I’ve never seen a baby
being born, but this is like what I imagine that’s like, only with
less, you know, mess and pain. The way it finds its way out into
the world, and waits for its wings to dry and harden so it can fly,
and then when it first tries them…”

“Coming to life,” she said, warmed by his
enthusiasm. His glasses slipped down his nose when he got excited,
and she saw that his eyes were a beautiful blue-green.

He grinned at her. “So can you imagine how
cool it must be, to see so many hatchings at once? All of them
coming to life at one time, like it was planned.”

“It must be incredible.”

“Do you want to come along on Beltane night?
Saturday, I guess that would be. I know it’s probably just a myth,
but if it really does happen…”

She was surprised at how much she regretted
having to tell him, “I can’t. The dance is that night.”

“Oh.” He thought for a second. “Could you
leave early?”

“I don’t think my boyfriend would be too
happy if I ditched him to go butterfly watching with you.”

“You’ve got that right,” said a deep voice,
and Gail was startled to find Darryl leaning against the railing of
her front steps. He had wavy dark hair with a forelock like a ’50s
greaser, and a grin with a touch of devilry about it. He was
handsome but didn’t act like he knew it, which was one of the nice
things about him. She wondered how long he’d been waiting for her,
and feeling guilty she went over to be kissed hello. He slung an
arm around her and regarded Jim. “So you’re what was holding Gail
up.”

He said it mildly enough, but Jim said
quickly, “I didn’t mean to. We were just—”

“Never mind. If it was anything to do with
the Sumners, I’m not surprised. Thanks to them I have to actually
schedule time with my girlfriend.”

The last thing she wanted was for him to
start harping on that again. “Darryl, this is Jim,” she said
hastily. “He’s studying butterflies and moths.”

Darryl jerked his head in greeting. “You at
Murphy too, then?”

“Young Harris,” said Jim diffidently. “It’s
my first year.”

“Uh huh.” Darryl was no longer listening.
“Listen,” he said to her, “why don’t you go ahead and get changed?
Unless you’re planning to go into town looking like Katharine
Hepburn.”

She wished she’d had time to change out of
her gardening jeans and sneakers before he’d arrived. He always
commented when she looked messy. “Sorry,” she said, her cheeks
burning.

Jim blinked at her. “Sorry for looking like
Katharine Hepburn? She was a babe.”

“Dressed like a bag lady, though,” said
Darryl. “Baggy khakis and tennis shoes… d’you need me to pick
something out for you?”

“No, I can manage. Nice meeting you,” she
said quickly to Jim, and his “You too” trailed after her as she
darted up the front steps and into the house, wondering whether her
madras sundress would satisfy Darryl or if she’d need to iron the
linen one.

* * *

“That’s its head coming out now. Then bloop,
all of a sudden its body will follow—there it goes.”

“Why’s it just hanging there?” asked Joy.
“Why isn’t it flying away?”

Jim smiled at her impatience. To him the
process took place with astonishing speed, but he could imagine how
slow it must seem to a seven-year-old. “It’s not ready to fly quite
yet,” he told her. “See how small its wings are compared to the
mounted butterfly we looked at? It’s going to hang out there for a
little while as the liquid from its body pumps into its wings and
makes them bigger and stronger.”

The classroom in the Young Harris science
building was deserted that Saturday afternoon except for the three
of them. When he’d noticed one of the monarchs was about to hatch,
he’d called the Sumner house and had been lucky enough to get Gail.
She brought Joy over at once so the little girl could watch the
amazing process.

Now Joy stood at eye level with the pale
green monarch chrysalis, which was suspended, along with at least a
dozen others, from the top of a cardboard box from which the side
had been cut so that they could be observed. Joy’s face was so
close that her breath stirred the hanging case, and Gail gently
drew her back a few inches without looking away from what was
happening in the box. Jim had brought his camera intending to take
pictures, but he hadn’t taken a single one yet, just as absorbed as
Joy in the birth of the butterfly… and watching Gail.

She was wearing a coral sundress and sandals
today, and her long brown hair hung in a glossy braid down her
back. Little gold hoops twinkled distractingly at her earlobes.
Maybe she was trying to fend off more jabs about Katharine
Hepburn.

He couldn’t believe what a jerk Darryl was,
criticizing his girlfriend like that in front of a stranger. But it
hadn’t seemed to offend Gail. And Darryl’s comparison was right in
one way, at least: Gail’s slim toned legs, revealed by the short
skirt of her sundress, were just as nice as Hepburn’s. Was she a
runner, maybe?

“It’s taking so long,” Joy objected, bringing
his wandering thoughts back to the matter at hand. With its slender
spidery legs the monarch butterfly found a foothold on the
chrysalis it had shed and hung there suspended. Ripples moved
through its thorax, pushing liquid into its wings.

“Being born tends to take a while,” said
Gail, giving her an affectionate look. It was obvious how attached
to Joy she was. She had even picked out butterfly-shaped barrettes
for Joy’s sandy hair in honor of the occasion.

Her answer didn’t satisfy Joy, though. “Can
we help it go faster? We could squeeze its tummy.”

“Ooh, that’s not a good idea,” Gail said
hastily. “It would be really easy to hurt him. Wouldn’t it,
Jim?”

“Definitely. We’re so much stronger. In
nature it’s pretty much always better to let things happen on their
own without interfering; there’s a big risk of doing more harm than
good.”

Joy nodded thoughtfully, accepting this. But
Gail looked troubled—far more troubled than could be explained by a
butterfly hatching. “What if there’s a creature that really needs
help?” she asked slowly. “What if it needs to be protected—like
now, when it’s vulnerable and can’t fly away?”

Instantly he realized she was thinking of
Joy. To have lost her mother so young… no wonder Gail was so
protective of her. Even now, apparently unconsciously, she’d
wrapped her arms around Joy’s shoulders as if to shield her.

But Joy wouldn’t always have her there. At
some point she’d need to be able to cope without her
babysitter.

He chose his words carefully. “Sometimes an
insect or an animal does need protecting. When it’s really young,
say, if it’s lost its—” He caught himself before he could say
parents.
“If it’s on its own,” he said instead. “But
eventually everything in nature has to be able to stand on its own.
Even rescued animals have to be able to return to the wild.”

“Not all of them do, though,” Gail insisted.
“Some of them can’t fend for themselves and have to be kept safe.”
Her soft brown eyes were distressed, and he wanted to smooth out
with his fingertip the worry crease that had appeared between her
eyebrows. And then let that fingertip travel along the adorable
curve of her nose and down to her full, blush-colored lips.

He gave himself a mental shake.
Focus,
Brody.
He wouldn’t be any help to her if all he could think
about was how cute she was. “Yeah, some never return to their
natural habitat,” he said. “But what kind of existence is that for
a creature that was born to be free? If they can’t leave their
shelter, they’re not going to experience a full life.”

He didn’t dare make it any plainer. It wasn’t
his place to tell Gail what to do, and he knew she wouldn’t accept
any answer she didn’t arrive at herself.

Unless it was something Darryl told her. He
was the type of guy that girls always seemed to fawn on—the type
that made Jim feel inadequate. Good-looking, confident, never at a
loss for words—Jim frequently felt at a loss for words with girls,
having spent so little time around girls his own age during all the
years he was homeschooled. Especially ones as pretty as Gail. But
at least he didn’t get tongue-tied talking about insects, so he
didn’t come off as completely inarticulate.

Yeah, that’d win her over.
Dump your
studly boyfriend and go out with me! I may be an awkward four-eyed
dork, but I can name all the body parts of a moth. Real smooth,
Romeo.
He’d just embarrass both of them if he made a play for
her—not that there was any chance in the world that she’d even be
interested.

Joy squeaked with excitement, pointing. “Look
at that other cocoon! I think it’s going to hatch too!”

He followed her pointing finger and observed
the crack that had appeared in one of the other dangling pupal
cases. “He must have decided to show off for you. This is actually
what we call a chrysalis, though; that’s what most butterflies
have. Cocoons are almost always made by moths.”

“So there’s actually a difference?” asked
Gail. “They aren’t moths by default if they’re nocturnal?”