The Patron Saint of Butterflies(26)

“Thanks a lot,” I say quietly. “It was fun. Winky and I should be getting back, though. It’s almost time for evening prayers.”

Mr. Schwab nods his head knowingly. He doesn’t ask us very many questions about Mount Blessing, but he knows we have weird rituals like evening prayers and Ascension Marches. “Okay then,” he says. “Let’s go get Winky and get you guys back.

The walk back is a long one, especially since it is dark and Winky and I are pushing wheelbarrows filled to the brim with Libby’s special compost. Although mine feels like it weighs two hundred pounds, the weight in my chest feels heavier. Winky walks alongside me for a little while, watching me out of the corner of his eye. He points out a cluster of White Admiral butterflies flapping around a chokecherry bush, and then two Silvery Checkerspots who seem to be mating atop a budding stalk of purple dragon flower. But his voice sounds far away. I don’t answer him. The night air, edged with just the whisper of a chill, makes the hair on my arms stand up. My mouth feels dry. When we come to a fork in the road, Winky turns sharply and I tilt my wheelbarrow too fast, trying to keep up. Suddenly the whole thing tips over, spilling compost in every direction. A horrible smell, like cow manure and rotten eggs, fills the air.

“Shit!” I yell, sitting down hard next to the pile of dirt. George digs into the soft part of my thigh inside my pocket. Furious, I reach inside, pull him out, and throw him as hard as I can into the trees across the road. He lands with a soft plop behind a mound of bushes.

Winky stares at me for a minute and then lowers his wheelbarrow. “What’d you go do that for?” he asks. Suddenly I realize what I have just done. Without waiting for an answer, Winky plods across the road.

“Don’t bother!” I yell, feeling like a three-year-old, but not caring, either. “Leave him! I don’t want him anymore! Just leave him, Winky!”

He ignores me. I watch with dull eyes as he pushes back brambles and tall weeds, sinking to his knees alongside the patch of bushes, pawing the ground with his thick, stubby hands.

“She’s probably just as insane as everyone else here,” I mutter. “Who in their right mind gives a ceramic cat to an infant right before abandoning her?”

Suddenly Winky stands up straight, holding George triumphantly in his hand. Holding a sob of relief in my chest, I shake my head as he sits down in the road next to me.

“Take him,” he says, balancing the tiny figurine carefully on my kneecap. “This here’s the only thing you’ve got of her. So hold on to him, even if you don’t know what it means. Then when you find her someday, you can ask her.” He is looking directly at me, something he rarely does when we talk.

“You think I’ll find her someday?” I ask.

Winky nods. “Yup.”

“Why?”

Winky struggles to his feet. “ ’Cause you want to. It’s a fire thing inside you. And when you got something burning like that inside, nothing else really matters till you find a way to put it out.”

I pick George back up with two fingers. The top half of his left ear is missing. I rub my finger over it tenderly and then insert him back into my pocket, pushing him down deep until he reaches his usual place against the curve of my thigh.

“Come on, now,” Winky says. “Let’s clean up this mess. We’re gonna be late for prayers.” He looks over his shoulder as I get to my feet. “And no more pouting.”

The Great House doors are unlocked, which means that dinner is over, but evening prayers have begun. Winky and I slip in quietly and kneel down at the very back of the room. The service is interminable, as always, and I soon stop chanting and begin looking around for Agnes and Benny. I strain to the right and then to the left, looking around the throng of robed bodies, but I don’t see either of them anywhere. Mr. and Mrs. Little are kneeling in front, right behind Emmanuel and Veronica, counting off the prayers on their consecration beads, but the space next to them is empty.

Emmanuel completes the service by standing in front of everyone and making the sign of the cross over our heads.

“In nomine Patris… ,” he intones.

I hate your guts, I think to myself.

“… et Filii … ”

You big phony. You monster.

“… et Spiritus Sancti.”

In a little while, you’re never going to see me again.

“Amen.”

All around me, people bow their heads, murmuring “amen” under Emmanuel’s raised arms. They do not move until he recedes from view, head lowered over his folded hands, and disappears into his room at the back of the house. I angle my way through the crowd, sidling carefully over to the bench outside his door and reach under it for my shoes. They’re there. I feel a weird sort of tenderness toward them as I pull them back out, as if they have been lonely without me.

Now I head over to Mrs. Little so that I can ask her about Agnes, but someone has already gotten hold of her and is steering her toward the kitchen. That leaves Mr. Little. I swallow hard and walk up to him.

“Do you know where Agnes is?” I ask.

Mr. Little looks down at me as if regarding a bug on the sidewalk. “Excuse me?” He takes a step backward the way he always does, as if I have cooties or something.

“I said, do you know where Agnes is? I didn’t see her during prayers.”