Mister Jessup herds them toward the shack at a rapid pace, cause he don’t want nobody else seein them. They talking that whispery talk to one another, cept for the sickly mon. The others glidin along, they have this supple style of walkin, but it all he can do to stagger and stumble. When we reach the shack, he slump down against a wall, while the rest go to pokin around the front room, touchin and liftin pots and glasses, knifes and forks, the cow skull that prop open the window. I seen Japanese tourists do less pokin. Mister Jessup install heself in a chair and he watchin over them like a mon prideful of he children.
Few months in La Ceiba, little spit and polish, he say, and they be ready. What you t’ink, boy? Well, I don’t know what to t’ink, but I allow they some right pretty girls.
Pretty? he say, and chuckle. Oh, yeah. They pretty and a piece more. They pretty like the Hope Diamond, like the Taj Mahal. They pretty all right.
I ask what he goin to do for the sick one and he say, Nothin I can do cept hope he improve. But I doubt he goin to come t’rough.
He had the right of that. Weren’t a half-hour fore the mon slump over dead and straightaway we buries him out in back. There weren’t hardly nothin to him. Judgin by the way Mister Jessup toss him about, he can’t weigh ten pounds, and when I dig he up a few days later, all I finds is some strands of silk.
We watches the butterfly girls and the mon a bit longer, then Mister Jessup start braggin about what a clever mon he be, but I suspect he anxious about somet’ing. An anxious mon tend to lose control of he mouth, to take comfort from the sound of he voice. He say six months under he lamps, with the nutrients he goin to provide, and won’t nobody be able to tell the difference between the butterflies and real folks. He say the world ain’t ready for these three. They goin to cut a swath, they are. Can you imagine, he ask, these little ladies walkin in the halls of power on the arm of a senator or the president of a company? Or the mon in a queen’s bed-chamber? The secrets they’ll come to know. They hands on the reigns of power. I can imagine it, boy. I know you can’t. You a brave little soldier, but you ain’t got the imagination God give a tick.
He run on in that vein, buildin heself a fancy future, sayin he might just take me along and show me how sweet the world be when you occupies a grand position in it. While he talkin, the women and the man keeps circulatin, movin round the shack, whispering and touchin, like they findin our world all strange and new. When they pass behind Mister Jessup, sometimes they touch the back of he neck and he freeze up for a moment and that peculiar smile flicker on; but then he go right on talking as if he don’t notice. And I’m t’inkin these ain’t no kind of butterflies. Mister Jessup may believe they is, he may think he know all about them. And maybe they like he say, a freak of nature. I ain’t disallowin that be true in part. Yet when I recall he playin that flute, playing like them Hindus in Puerto Morales does when they sits on a satin pillow and summons colors from the air, I know, whether he do or not, that he be summonin somet’ing, too. He callin spirits to be born inside them cocoons. Cause, you see, these butterfly people, they ain’t no babies been alive a few hours. That not how they act. They ware of too much. They hears a dog barkin in the distance, a coconut thumpin on the sand, and they alert to it. When they put they eye on you…I can’t say how I knows this, but there somet’ing old about them, somet’ing older than the years of Mister Jessup and me and my daddy all added up together.
Eventually Mister Jessup reach a point in he fancifyin where he standin atop the world, decidin whether or not to let it spin, and that pear to satisfy him. He lead me back to where my daddy stropped down. Daddy he starin at me like he get loose, the island not goin to be big enough for me to hide in.
Don’t you worry, boy, Mister Jessup say. He ain’t goin to harm you none.
He slip Daddy’s gag and inquire of him if the launch can make it to La Ceiba and the weather calm. Daddy reckon it can. Take most of a day, he figures.
Well, that’s how we’ll go, say Mister Jessup.
He puts a match to the kerosene lamp by the bed and brings the butterfly people in. Daddy gets to strugglin when he spies them. He callin on Jesus to save him from these devils, but Jesus must be havin the night off.
The light lend the butterfly people some color and that make them look more regular. But maybe I just accustomed to seein them, cause Daddy he thrash about harder and goes to yellin fierce. Then the one woman touch a hand gainst he cheek, and that calm him of an instant. Mister Jessup push me away from the bed, so I can’t see much, just the three of them gatherin round my daddy and his legs stiffening and then relaxin as they touch he face.
I goes out in the front room and sits on the stoop, not knowin what else to do. There weren’t no spirit in me to run. Where I goin to run to? Stay or go, it the same story. I either winds up beggin in Coxxen Hole or gettin pounded by my daddy. The lights of Wilton James’ shack shining t’rough the palms, not a hundred feet away, but Wilton a drunk and he can’t cure he own troubles, so what he goin to do for mine? I sits and toes the sand, and the world come to seem an easy place. Waves sloppin on the shingle and the moon, ridin almost full over a palm crown, look like it taken a faceful of buckshot. The wind carry a fresh smell and stir the sea grape growin beside the stoop.
Soon Mister Jessup call me in and direct me to a chair. Flanked by the butterfly people, my daddy leanin by the bedroom door. He keep passin a hand before his eyes, rubbin he brow. He don’t say nothin, and that tell me they done somet’ing to him with they touches, cause a few minutes earlier he been dyin to curse me. Mister Jessup kneel beside the chair and say, We goin off to La Ceiba, boy. I know I say I’m takin you with me, but I can’t be doin that. I gots too much to deal with and I havin to worry bout you on top of it. But you showed me somet’ing, you did. Boy young as you, faced with all this, you never shed a tear. Not one. So I’m goin to give you a present.
A present sound like a fine idea, and I don’t let on that my daddy have beat the weepin out of me, or that I small for my age. I can’t be certain, but I pretty sure I goin on eleven, t’ough I could not have told him the day I were born. But eleven or eight, either way I too young to recognize that any present given with that kind of misunderstandin ain’t likely to please.
You a brave boy, say Mister Jessup. That’s not always a good t’ing, not in these parts. I fraid you gonna wind up a wrecker like your daddy…or worse. You be gettin yourself killed fore you old enough to realize what livin is worth. So I’m goin to take away some of your courage.
He beckon to one of the women and she come forward with that glidin walk. I shrinks from her, but she smile and that smile smooth out my fear. It have an effect similar to Mister Jessup’s pats-on-the-head. She swayin before me. It almost a dance she doin. And she hummin deep in she throat, the sound some of Daddy’s girlfriends make after he climb atop them. Then she bendin close, bringin with her a sweet, dry scent, and she touch a finger to my cheek. The touch leave a little electric trail, like my cheek sparklin and sparkin both. Cept for that, I all over numb. She eye draw me in til that gray crystal all I seein. I so far in, pear the eye enormous and I floatin in front of it, bout the size of a mite. And what lookin back at me ain’t no butterfly. The woman she may have a pleasin shape, but behind she eye there’s another shape pressin forward, peekin into the world and yearnin to bust out the way the butterfly people busted out of they cocoon. I feels a pulse that ain’t the measure of a beatin heart. It registerin an unnatural rhythm. And yet for all that, I drawn in deeper. I wants her to touch me again, I wants to see the true evil shape of her, and I reckon I’m smiling like Mister Jessup, with that same mixture of terror and delight.