Reticent (h.s fanfic, punk Harry)

Chapter 29

I'm listening to the new album as I am writing this. I love all their songs especially Never Enough and What a Feeling and Olivia. I am so upset that I don't have that name. Comment your favorite song from their new album, Made In the A.M.

"You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd think your mother was a butterfly or flower scientist." Ophelia's voice flew over as the butterflies did around us.

Her small body swerved to the left as Blondie came rushing from the flower pots behind her. A small bug in between his teeth squirmed and tried relentlessly to escape. Blondie, however, looked hesitant to jettison the insect from his mouth.

Ophelia walked for a few steps, stopping as she reached a herd of small flowers in a pot. Her fingers played around, running the pads of her frail fingers over the texture of petals and the smooth uplift of the green leaf wilting down; most of them were wilting down. The weather was turning fast, winter overpowering the summer days too soon for my liking, or Anne's.

Something told me it was a miracle that the warm season stayed so long. And maybe it wanted her attention sometime longer before she left, before they only had the attention of a grieving boy.

"A botanist, you mean?" I asked, letting my own fingers probe at the petals fallen to the ground. Mum hated raking these. 'They've fallen, but who are we to discard them?' She would ask. 'Let nature take its course, let the wind guide them.'

"Yes, I suppose. Does she-did she ever want to?"

"Want to be a botanist?" She nodded. "My mother never wanted to make a career from something she loved this much. Besides." I stood from my lying position to join her by the flowers. Her face looked brighter than it had in the shop, a sort of happiness had overtaken her features. "My mother doesn't like to harm the plants or the insects. She just lets them come whenever they please. It's like a refuge from the harsh winds outside."

She nodded, her hair flying in her face for a mere few seconds. We stood by the flowers, merely touching and observing. She looked fresh-her fascination was breathtaking to me. The only other fascination that had ever taken me so captive was Anne's. How her face had swelled with a smile, how her voice had gone octaves higher from the happiness.

"My  mum actually used to collect these creatures," I spoke to her, my eyes locking on a yellow butterfly. "Let them in the house, doing as they pleased. She kept herself busy for a few days, but they died. Butterflies tend to do that I suppose; die quickly." Her eyes came on to my face, her irises so small I couldn't see the bright colour. Her lips turned slightly down at the harsh words.

Small tendrils of her hair whisped with the wind, invading her face. She quickly pushed it away with a quick jerk of her wrist and a huff of annoyance. "What did she do? When the butterflies died?"

I looked back into my memory-back to those moments when my mother would look at the still creature on a curtain or the floor. Her face would drop down-because yet again something so serene had died. She would however always do the same thing.

"She had a small jar. She would put little branches in there with a few pieces of flower petals and leave the dead butterflies there. She'd leave it outside and it became home to others." Her lips pursed, her eyes travelling to a small grey moth flying towards one of the lights. "Later she transformed that small jar into," my hands gestured around us. "This huge one."

"Wow," an awed expression masked her face.

"I used to be very inept with this world. I used to accidentally rip their wings off." A laugh erupted. "She would just scold. But I used to love those vibrant colours! I mean they would paint a canvas on your fingers. Colours mixing, swerving-kind of like a painting of their lives. Then I would put the butterfly on my finger and walk around with it, pretending I was helping it fly, when I was the one that broke its wing. But the thing is...they never left me, they wouldn't try to fly from fear or run. They'd stay put on my finger, then they'd die. Mum thought it beautiful. I was killing these things, but they stayed with me. They let me help them."