The Lavender Butterfly

Chapter 29

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I heard a man yelling at me. I opened my eyes, and I was in a riotous crowd of people. People that all seemed to be angry with me. The first man that was yelling at me was Jesse, the man at the beach from the day before. “You expect me to believe your bullshit story, that you transformed from a man to a girl because you stayed at a hotel that was haunted?! To think, we wasted all that time trying to help a fruitcake like you! You should be ASHAMED of yourself, little girl!” the man continued. I didn’t understand. The man was so pleasant and so welcoming yesterday, and now he appeared enraged with me. I felt a hand grab me forcefully by the shoulder and heard the voice of a Hispanic man yelling in my ear. “How do you expect me or anyone to believe your story, that you stayed at our hotel, and it turned you into a little girl?” I looked and recognized the man as the clerk at the front desk at the hotel that Meredith and I stayed at in Cassadaga. “And that mother of yours……WOW, is she for real?” The man continued, making “cuckoo” noises. “Do you think I actually believe her story? She’s obviously psychologically unsound. I’d better not find her husband’s body in the dumpster out back!” I then heard a maniacal laugh blaring into my ear. I turned and I saw the carnival barker just inches away from my face, tossing a softball into the air, laughing. “Look at you, you say you were a man, now you are just a little girl, and you’re letting a boy win all your games for you? And now you say this boy is your boyfriend?” The man spit in my face with his boisterous laughter. “What a freakshow!!!” “Big man’s a little girl now!!!” “You like wearing pretty dresses now? That’s a laugh!!” “What’re you gonna do? Go cry to your mommy?” The hostile crowd of people spun around me, yelling, screaming, and laughing at me. All of these people seemed so nice when I met them, now they felt like were my adversaries. I felt like everyone has turned on me and everyone in the world was my enemy. I put my head in my hands. The voices felt like daggers in my soul. I felt my fists clenching, my fingernails digging into the palms of my hands so hard I felt like they were going to bleed. I let out a deafening scream, and a seismic shock violently shook the ground around me, turning the hostile crowd into dust. When the dust settled, I saw Stella, Chloe, Evan, and my mother all dressed in black, sobbing above me. I looked around, I was lying in a casket. Was this my funeral? Suddenly, the casket closed shut, and saw nothing but darkness. I laid there in total darkness and silence, until I heard a muffled voice outside the casket. The voice sounded cheerful, in sharp contrast to the hostile voices I just heard earlier. “Sweetie, it’s time to wake up…. wake up, sweetie! Let me see those beautiful brown eyes!” I softly opened my eyes to see Meredith lying next to me smiling, running her hands through my hair. Once again, I found myself rescued from a dreadful nightmare by the bright, shining, cheerful voice that has comforted me for many years. “Good morning, mom,” I said to her, smiling back at her. “Aww….it warms my heart hearing you call me mom,” she said to me affectionately. “You were tossing and turning all night, were you having a nightmare?” she continued. I nodded yes, then nestled up to her chest. “All the nice people that we met on our trip, were yelling at me and laughing at me. I felt so alone,” I said desolately. “Oh, Liv, you know that people love you and they would never treat you that way,” she said warmly. “Are you worried about what’s going to happen when we get back home?” She continued. “A little,” I replied. Meredith leaned over me and gave me a big bear hug. “Don’t worry about a thing. It’s going to be tough for a while, but no matter what, I will be there for you. If you need someone to stick up for you, anyone to vent to, or anyone to cry with, I will always be there for you, okay?” she said. I smiled, starting to tear up a little bit. “Thank you, mom, I love you,” I said to her. She gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I love you too, Olivia,” she replied. The comfort I was feeling was unlike anything I could fathom. I just wanted to lay in her arms forever. The words she said were echoing in my head. She was always my rock, my source of stability in my life, and it had never been truer. I couldn’t stress enough how lucky I was to have her in my life.