Rene Denfeld - The Butterfly Girl

For Luppi, Tony, Markel, and Tamira.

Loving you gives me flight.

Celia knew a bad place when she saw it.

The abandoned-looking house was in the industrial area next to skid row, where loading docks glistened with moisture and train tracks crossed the broken streets. The windows were covered with boards. What looked like blankets peeked out from under the slats. The front door was heavy and covered with locks.

Celia had been hunting for returnable bottles when she noticed the place. The few houses left in this area were usually empty. Not this one.

She balled her hands in the pockets of her jean jacket and studied the house. Her hair, dirty and musty, but still with a copper sheen, was cut short into wayward curls. She may have only been twelve, but she knew more than most. Or so she told herself. But deep inside her was the fear that she didnt know enough.

A shadow seemed to move behind the boarded-up basement window. Celia froze, then made herself breathe. Someone was looking at her through a tiny pane of glass. She could feel the heat of their gaze. For a second, it seemed that their eyes locked.

Celia disappeared inside herself. She was used to doing that. She could make herself vanish even as she stood there, just another street urchin with no future in sight.

Celia, who believed in nothing but herself and the butterflies, knew that the worst fears of the streets were always real. You can find this out the hard way, or you can be watchful. She backed away, and then ran back to skid row. But she could still feel those eyes in the window, burning into her with something that could have been angeror might have been hope.

Naomi awoke, and for one brief moment, she thought she was back there. In the place. She heard her sisters voice, calling through the years: Come back and find me. Im twenty-five now. The water drips we once felt are gone, and the chariot has flown away.

Naomi opened her eyes to find herself in her friend Dianes sunny guest room, curled with her husband, Jerome, in a bed once reserved for her alone during her rare visits. She breathed out in relief that the dream was over but still felt the anxious echo of the call.

Im getting closer, she thought. This was why she was here in the city with Jerome. After almost a year of searching for her long-lost sister, their investigation had brought them here.

Her nose twitched. She could smell fried ham and coffee. The room was filled with sunshine, and Jerome was next to her, the cap of his shoulder rising against the sheet. In a moment she would get up and make her way down the narrow stairs to eat breakfast with her friend.

Diane served the ham with redeye gravy and scrambled eggs flecked with chives. Naomi poured cream in her coffee. She knew Jerome was probably awake upstairs but giving her these few minutes alone with Dianeshe appreciated that.

Diane drank her own coffee black, wincing at the taste. She looked at Naomis cream like it might spite her. To be young, she said.

You never worried before, Naomi said cheerfully, adding sugar to her cup.

Diane had aged in the last year. Silver laced her abundant red hair, and lines crossed her face. Her usual warm demeanor had quieted, and Naomi could see the loneliness in the slack skin under her jaw. And in her eyes.

Staying long? Diane said hopefully.

Probably not, Naomi responded, cutting into her ham and tucking a piece into her mouth. Thanks for letting Jerome come along.

Of course. Hes your husband. Diane said this mildly, but Naomi caught a whiff of disapproval. Disappointment with Naomi? The last time she had seen Diane was a year ago, at their wedding, right here in Dianes living room. Both Naomi and Jerome were thirty. It was their first seriousand for Naomi onlyrelationship.

She let it go, there among the matching breakfast plates with flowers on the rims, the linen-colored cups, the cream pitcher. Outside the birds were calling, and Naomi heard a crow silence them. She had been raised in the country and could identify a dozen birds by their sound. Yet she could not find her sister.

Dianes hand reached for hers. You think she might be here, she said, softly.

We heard about some missing girls, Naomi said, cautiously.

One might be your sister?

Diane knew that Naomi had escaped captivity as a child. For most of Naomis life her only early childhood memory had been running through a strawberry field at night after escaping from a rotten trapdoor in the woods, deep in the Oregon farm valley. A group of migrants had found her and driven her to Opal, a small town an entire day away. Naomi had grown up there, with a loving foster mother named Mrs. Cottle. She was nine when she was found, but no matter how hard she tried, she could remember nothing more of her past. Terror had wiped her memory clean. Naomi had grown up to become an investigator, dedicated to finding missing children. She thought she wanted to find children like herselfbut the real truth was that she wanted to find the little sister she had left behind.

Naomi shook her head. I dont think so. Theyre too young. But I wanted to check it out. They were dumped in the river here. Those who have been found, at least.

Diane frowned, letting go of her hand. I hadnt heard about that.

Naomi blinked at her plate. The Green River Killer murdered at least seventy-five women. Dozens before anyone even noticed.

Diane looked sympathetically at Naomi. She knew how hard it must be to stay inside the center of the storm. Were these prostitutes, too? Diane asked.

Street kids. Does it matter?

You know me, her friend said tartly. Of course it doesnt.

Behind them, she could hear Jeromes soft descent from their guest bedroom upstairs. The man who had once been her foster brother, now her lover, friend, and more.

Diane reached for her coffee, sat back. She didnt know Jerome well.

Naomi looked up, smiled briefly. Jerome. You explain.

The narrow form of her husband took a chair. He smiled at Diane, dark eyes on her, a hank of black hair falling. The shoulder cap of his missing armtaken in the wartwitched. We were visiting the task force in Salem when we heard street girls are going missing here. Theyre all Jane Doeseven their street friends dont know their real names. Some have been murdered; their bodies have turned up in the river. Naomi wants to talk to her detective friend, visit the medical examiner, put up some flyers about her sisterrule out that she might have been one of the girls. He paused. And maybe use her expertise to do something for these girls.

I hope this all works out, Diane said quietly, blowing on the hot, bitter coffee.

Jerome reached with his one arm, found the cream pitcher with his long slender fingers, and, without asking, poured a rich stream into her cup. His eyes told Diane he understood what it was like to love Naomi. Diane found solace in his glance.

Hope is enough, he said.

A heavyset man with a mashed face was watching Celia. He wore a blue jacket zipped up to his reddened neck, the kind of jacket worn by guys who work in automotive shops, only this one didnt have an i am pete name tag stitched on the front pocket.

He could be anyone. That was the truth of the streets: If there was danger, anyone could hold it. No one could be trusted, not in the end.

Celia believed this.

The beefy man, his eyes like tiny periscopes on her, could be him. The man prowling the downtown streets, making her friends disappear. Some turned up as corpses, floating in the river. Others just vanished. Not that such things didnt happen anyhow, but latelyin this heady spring of rain showers and streets that ran blood dark with freshetsit was happening more and more. Like all the time.