The Butterfly Child

Chapter Five

We sat beneath the red tree. The smell long gone but the leaves were dead now. If only Ebimo and Marko had taken the right gallons. Annie sat beside me, wearing a small blue gown with a blue bow on her hair. I stared at the tree, right beside where we'd kept the butterflies. Red leaves fluttering all around their bodies. Deep inside me I was praying, praying for some kind of miracle that would marvelously jolt them back to life. I was even ready to be April's fool, even though it wasn't April.

None of those things happened. Amor, Bubba, Sanya and the other butterflies laid there, lifeless. As the wind continued to blow, the red leaves continued to fly around aimlessly. I couldn't help the tears that fell from my eyes, I couldn't shake the heavy feeling that came with it.

Blue, purple, yellow, orange wings laid still. Annie beside me, her hands wrapped around her torso. She was crying as well. I rubbed my palm against the red leaves littered all around me.

"How did this happen?" I choked out. "I thought we saved them. We took them away from the tree. So how come?"

Annie swallowed before looking up. Her eyes bulged as she stared at me. She choked also and sobbed. "I think it's the leaves. The leaves were infected before we tossed them in the container."

"We weren't careful enough." I said simply. Because we really weren't. "We should have known."

Annie eyed me briefly. "We didn't."

I closed my eyes and slumped against the tree, my hands shaking. Annie began to cough then, although very briefly this time.

I turned back to look at the other lifeless insects, It was then that my eyes caught on to something. A blue winged butterfly — it was Dania, her wings fluttered. And like a flicker of light, I thought I heard her sob. Annie froze too. She looked up, our eyes locked and just immediately we both crawled towards the spot. The wind had moved Dania or she crawled her way, I wouldn't know. Her wings kept on fluttering. I picked her up., gripping her by a wing and placed her on my palm. Annie scooted closer to me, her curls resting on my shoulder.

"Dania can you hear us?" she asked. "If you can, speak up. Please..."

"Annie...." Dania's voice didn't hold the flick of ease it once upon a time held. Her voice came out low and almost bland. "Nella..."

"How can we save you Dania? What's going on?"

Her wings stopped fluttering, as she laid still on my palm "The poison... Still in the air."

"Oh my —"

"Does that mean that this tree doesn't even help?" I whispered, not intended for her to hear. So if we had been keeping these butterflies here, we were only killing them the more. I stood up abruptly. "Annie lets head out to the other side. Where that trucks are parked."

Annie creased her brows. "That's out in the open, Nella."

"We have to try and see if they'll wake up again. These are magical butterflies. They've been my only friends and now I don't know what it is I'd do without them."

Annie stared at me for a little while. She sighed in defeat and shook her head. "Let's hold a little funeral for them. Denial is one of the worse things in life. You'd keep on having this hope that they'd wake up. They won't Nella —"

"Where is your faith?!" I cried, "where did courageous Annie go?!"

"Nella," she coughed.

"Why do they have to die?!" I screamed.

Annie's eyes widened. She placed her index finger above her lips. "Shh. Don't shout Nella."

"Nella." Dania's voice came lowly. Weak and strained. I was crying now, Annie was coughing but I knew she was in as much grief as I was. "Don't cry anymore. We fulfilled what we came to do," Dania spat out.