The Butterfly Garden (31 page)

“It’s not a birthday gift,” she continued sourly. “It’s an ‘I’m sorry your life sucks so fucking much’ gift.”

“Good gift.”

“And shitty timing,” she agreed. She rolled a tiny ball of gold clay into a rope, pinched it in half, twirled it together, and the red king got a shoulder braid for his uniform. “Do you hate him just a little too?”

“More than a little.”

“He would be going against his family.”

“Whereas now he’s just going against common decency and the law,” I sighed. I held out the softened clay and she handed me a ball of royal blue. I knew better than to ask to make one of the bears—my clay creations sucked. “Bliss, I guarantee you there isn’t a side of this I haven’t turned over in my head. It stopped making sense a long time ago, if it ever did.”

“So just go with it and see what happens.”

“Pretty much.”

“He’s coming.”

Footsteps sounded down the hall, growing louder, and a moment later Desmond walked in and dropped to the floor beside me, handing each of us an orange. “Is that a chess set?”

Bliss rolled her eyes and didn’t answer, so while she made teddy bear soldiers, I kneaded the clay and Desmond played with his iPod and travel speaker to continue the concert.

And that orange? First and only time I ever got the peel off in a perfect spiral.

Eddison finally returns holding two bags, one containing bottles of soda and water, the other with what proves to be meatball subs. When he gives one to the girl, he also pulls a small plastic bag from his pocket and sets it on the table before her.

She picks up the bag, then stares at the contents. “My little blue dragon!”

“I talked to the scene techs; they said your room was protected by the cliff.” He sits down across from her, busying himself with unwrapping his sub. Out of courtesy, Victor pretends not to see his blush. “They’ll box everything up for you once it’s released, but they went ahead and gave me that one to pass on.”

She opens the bag and cradles the small clay creature in her hands, one thumb rubbing over the tiny, pajama-clad teddy bear tucked into the crook of its arm. “Thank you,” she whispers.

“You’ve been more forthcoming. Somewhat.”

She smiles.

“Vic, the scene techs are looking through the house. They’ll let us know if they find the pictures.”

For a time, conversation stops as they eat, though the girl has to wrap her tender hands in napkins to hold the hot sandwich. When the meal is done and the debris thrown away, she picks up the sad little dragon and curls her hands around it.

Victor decides it’s his turn to be brave. “What happened to Avery?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did his father punish him?”

“No, they just had a long talk about respecting each other’s privacy, and that the Butterflies were not possessions to be passed around but individuals to be cherished. To hear Des tell it, there was also a pretty sharp reminder that Avery wasn’t allowed to touch me anyway, given the whole branding thing. Well, ‘given the prior incident,’ and Des had never asked about the scar on my hip. If you don’t ask, you can keep your head buried in the sand.”

“So things went back to normal.”

“Such as it was.”

“But something had to change.”

“Something did. Its name was Keely.”

Or, more properly, its name was Avery, and its victim was Keely.

I saw a lot less of Desmond once the semester started. It was his senior year and he was carrying a full course load, but he came in the evenings and brought his textbooks so he could study, and just like I’d helped Whitney, Amber, and Noémie study once upon a time in the apartment, I helped him. Without booze. Bliss helped too, by making fun of him whenever he got something wrong.

Or even just not completely right.

Bliss seized on any opportunity to make fun of him, really.

Avery’s mood went from foul to worse as he watched his brother be such a part of the Garden. Like I said, most of the Butterflies liked Desmond. He didn’t ask anything of them. Well, he asked them questions, and left it to them whether or not to answer.

He asked their names sometimes, but it had somehow become a tradition in the Garden that you only gave your name as your goodbye. But we told him that Simone had once been Rachel Young, that Lyonette had been Cassidy Lawrence. Any of the ones we knew who couldn’t be hurt by the reminder.

Desmond wasn’t a threat to them.

Avery, on the other hand, savaged Zara so badly during sex that his father banned him for a full month, then had to drug him to avoid the hissy fit that tried to follow. Zara could barely walk after that, and every part of her was bruised. Someone stayed with her at all times just to help her with basic functions like showering, getting to the toilet, and eating.

Lorraine was a competent enough nurse—if hardly a compassionate one—but she wasn’t a miracle worker.

Infection set into Zara’s hip, and it was either take her to a hospital or put her in glass.

I think you can safely guess which one the Gardener chose.

For the first time, he told us that morning, so we could have a full day with her to make our goodbyes.

I gave him a sideways look when he told me that, which was met with a lopsided smile and a kiss to the temple. “Even when it’s just a swift embrace and a stolen whisper, you share things with each other in those moments. If it can provide Zara—and the rest of you—any comfort, I’d like to see that you get it.”

I said thank you because he seemed to expect it, but part of me wondered if it was better to just have it happen all at once, rather than dragging it out over the day.

Before he left for class, Desmond brought us a wheelbarrow so we could maneuver Zara through the Garden. He smiled when he brought it, smiled as he kissed my cheek and left for school, and Bliss swore so fluently that Tereza blushed.

“He doesn’t know, does he?” she panted when she could speak a language other than Obscenity. “He really has no clue.”

“He knows Zara is ill; he thinks he’s doing something nice.”

“That—that . . .”

Some things don’t need a translator.

That afternoon, while the Gardener walked with his wife in that other greenhouse that was so much closer than it seemed, Zara pushed herself up to sitting on her bed, sweat matting her fiery orange hair. “Maya? Bliss? Can you wheel me around for a bit?”

We folded a blanket into the wheelbarrow and arranged a few pillows under and around her, stabilizing her hip as much as possible. It wasn’t her only broken bone, but it was decidedly the most painful. “Just in a lap through the hallway,” she instructed.

“Looking for real estate?” Bliss asked, and Zara nodded.

It was something you couldn’t help but wonder about. When you died, which case would you be in? I was pretty sure I knew which one the Gardener had picked out for me; it was right beside Lyonette, and positioned in such a way that you could see it from the cave. Bliss thought she’d be on my other side, just the three of us, hanging out forever in the fucking wall for future generations of Butterflies to wonder about and fear.

We walked slowly through the hall, me pushing the barrow and Bliss doing her best to stabilize the front. Zara stopped us near the front entrance, where the scent of honeysuckle filled the air and mixed with a more chemical smell from one of the rooms we never, ever saw open. Like the tattoo room, Lorraine’s room, and Avery’s former playroom, the walls were opaque and solid, with a punch pad beside an honest-to-God door. We weren’t supposed to be here.

And I’d still never seen Des put in his main door code.

“Do you think if I asked for this one, he’d give it to me?”

“For the honeysuckle?”

“No, because we all avoid this part. Then I wouldn’t be seen as much.”

“Ask him. Worst he can do at that point is say no.”

“If I asked you right now to kill me, would you?”

I studied the empty glass case because I didn’t want to see if she was serious or not. Zara could be cruel, mocking the other girls until they cried, but she didn’t have much of a sense of humor. “I guess I’m not that good a friend,” I said finally.

Bliss said nothing.

“Do you think it hurts?”

“He says it doesn’t.”

“And you believe him?”

“No,” I sighed, leaning against the doorway into the plant life. “I don’t think he knows one way or the other. I think he wants to believe there’s no pain.”

“What do you think she’ll be like?”

“Who?”

“The next Butterfly.” She craned her head back to stare at me, her brown eyes fever-bright. “He hasn’t gone hunting in a long time. Not since Tereza. He’s been so happy with Desmond here that he hasn’t even looked for anyone else.”

“He might not go look.”

She snorted.

He didn’t always, though. Sometimes a girl died and he didn’t go hunting. Not until someone else died. Sometimes he brought back one girl, occasionally he brought back two, though he hadn’t done that during my time here. Trying to understand why that man did anything the way he did was a worthless endeavor.

We were still standing there when Lorraine came out of her room to start dinner. She seemed startled at first, one hand flying to the dark chestnut hair, somewhat faded and heavily streaked with silver, that she still wore long and up, as the Gardener preferred. Even though he never looked at her, never commented on it, she still wore it that way. She glanced at the bandaged Zara, at how pale she was except for two bright blotches of red on her cheeks, then at the empty case.

Zara’s eyes narrowed. “Wishing you were in there, Lorraine?”

“I don’t have to put up with you,” the woman retorted.

“I know how you can be.”

Suspicion warred with hope in fading blue eyes. “You do?”

“Yeah. Magically become thirty years younger. I’m sure he’d love to kill and display you then.”

Lorraine sniffed and stalked past us, slapping Zara’s ankle on the way. The movement jarred the broken, infected hip and she bit back a scream.

Bliss’s eyes followed the cook-nurse. “I’ll send Danelle to help you back.”

“Why, where are you—” I took a second look at her expression. “Right. Never mind. Danelle.”

The gasping Zara and I watched her jog away. “What do you suppose she’s doing?” she asked after a minute.

“I’m not asking and I don’t want to know in advance,” I said fervently. “Depending on what it is, I may not want to know after the fact either.”

A few minutes later, not just Danelle but a very confused Marenka walked down the hall to join us. “Should I ask what Bliss is doing?”

“No,” we answered together.

“So I shouldn’t ask why she borrowed my scissors?” murmured Marenka, a hand to her throat where a ribbon usually held her tiny pair of embroidery scissors.

“Right.”

Danelle thought about that, accepted it, and lightly touched the edge of the wheelbarrow. “Into the Garden? Or back to your room?”

“Room,” groaned Zara. “I think I get to take another painkiller.”

Between us, Danelle, Marenka, and I got her settled back into bed with a glass of water and a happy pill. Then Bliss walked in, hands held behind her back, and an eminently satisfied look on her face.

Oh, God, I didn’t want to know.

“I have a present for you, Zara,” she announced cheerfully.

“Avery’s head on a platter?”

“Close.” She tossed something onto the coverlet.

Zara lifted it up to stare at it, then burst out laughing. It dangled from her hand, the ends slowly releasing from their pattern. “Lorraine’s braid?”

“Enjoy!”

“Think I could take it with me?”

Danelle rubbed the ends of the hair between her fingers. “We could probably rebraid part of it into a garter for you.”

“Or braid it into your hair like extensions.”

“A crown, definitely.”

Everyone who came in through the afternoon and evening had another suggestion to make, and it was an indication of our universal contempt for Lorraine that no one expressed any sorrow or sympathy for our cook-nurse. When it was time for dinner, we all took our trays and crowded into Zara’s room, all twenty-odd of us, knee to knee on the floor and even in the shower.