The Patron Saint of Butterflies(8)

I don’t remember falling asleep, but the next thing I know, Agnes is snuggling in next to me, exactly the way we used to when we were kids sharing the same crib in the nursery. Her breath is soft as a rose petal against the back of my neck. Something inside my chest swells as our breathing aligns itself. For a moment it feels as though the old Agnes, the one I’ve known since we were born, is back. The new Agnes, who seems to have sprung whole and fully formed from inside the bowels of Emmanuel’s room after he presented her with that freaky The Saints’ Way book on her birthday, just doesn’t do things like that anymore. (I didn’t get the book on my birthday, which is two weeks after Agnes’s. Agnes was all upset for me, but I told her to relax. Emmanuel probably thinks it would be wasted on me and for once he’d be absolutely right. I’d probably burn the damn thing if I got it.) I hardly recognize Agnes anymore. Now, as if the rules we have to follow here aren’t enough, she has become completely obsessed with becoming an actual saint. She walks around with this glazed expression on her face, mumbling prayers under her breath, trying to be perfect. Half the time she doesn’t even eat.

It’s been a long year, watching and listening to my best friend turn into a robot-girl. I miss her. I miss the light and easy way things used to be with us, the way she used to be able to make me laugh so hard I practically peed in my pants. I can’t even remember the last time she was funny—about anything. I miss sitting in the old apple trees on the path to the barn and talking for hours, about any and everything. When we got hungry, we would just reach up and pluck an apple, warm and sweet from the sun, from one of the branches and eat it. I miss the way we used to steal extra snacks from the snack tray after dinner—usually plastic bags filled with dried cereal—and run down to the frog pond so we could eat it without being seen. If Agnes stole anything now, she’d probably have a heart attack. I miss the dumb jokes she used to tell me and the way her eyes would fill up with tears when she watched the sun go down at night.

Most of all, though, I miss running with her in the rain. Agnes is small, so you wouldn’t know it by looking at her, but she can run. Fast. When she takes off, it’s like a set of wings sprout from the back of her shoes. No one—not even any of the boys—has ever beaten her. Not once. It’s like trying to keep up with a cheetah. We used to spend the majority of our free time, especially in the summer, racing against each other. I liked running in the heat, but Agnes would literally drag me down the hill to the bicycle ring whenever the skies threatened rain. Her eyes would gleam with excitement as the wind whipped up the dust around us and the air began to fill with the strange metallic scent of the coming storm. We flew across the ring over and over again as the drops fell, going faster and faster as the rain picked up speed.

It’s been over a year since we ran together. Whenever I suggest a race, Agnes just shakes her head. It’s just as well I guess, since she can barely even muster the energy to walk the quarter mile to school every morning, let alone run a race, thanks to all that ridiculous fasting. The whole thing pisses me off. It really does. Agnes said once that running against the rain made her try harder, that it forced her to reach down inside herself to a place she usually didn’t go. If you ask me, that place was the only thing that kept her normal.

Now I don’t know what’s in there.

After Agnes and Benny leave to go find Nana Pete, I get up slowly and head back down to the East House. I’m dying to go down to the butterfly garden and see how things are going with Winky, but I don’t dare. I’ve already been missing for four hours. After the last Regulation Room visit I was gone for one hour, and the time before that, almost forty-five minutes. I don’t know how much longer Christine will let me get away with doing this kind of thing, but I don’t want to find out.

Except for the occasional whistling of a bird, the grounds are eerily quiet. Even the wind is still, as if it too understands this week’s rule of silence. Ascension Week is one of the holiest times of the year, when the Believers celebrate Jesus Christ’s ascent into heaven. For the next seven days, talking is allowed only at the barest minimum, and then in the lowest tone possible. Any activity that takes place outside is strictly prohibited. Even school is canceled for the week. Everyone is inside somewhere, either praying or participating in “Ascension activities,” which will culminate at the end of the week with the Ascension March.

So when I hear a strange noise suddenly, like the crunching of gravel, I freeze in my tracks. A strange car emerges from around the bend in the dirt path, moving slowly up the hill. Darting behind a lilac bush, I peer out through the leaves. Sleek and compact as a bullet, the car is the color of gunmetal. Its glossy exterior is spotless, and the tiny silver hood ornament catches the sun in a flash of light. The little hairs on my arm stand up as I catch a glimpse of Veronica sitting behind the wheel. She is not wearing her robe. No surprise there. Gold bracelets encircle her thin wrists and a blue scarf, knotted at the throat, covers her blond hair. I hold my breath as the car passes in front of me. There’s no telling what will happen if Veronica catches sight of me now, especially after all the trouble I got into this morning. I hunch down farther against the bush, but the car rolls on past and continues without pause up the remainder of the hill.

Spooked, I run the rest of the way down to the East House without stopping and poke my head in cautiously. The prayer service has obviously ended, as a bunch of the older kids are crowded around the window in the front of the room.