“Ah, well,” I sighed. I leaned forward to refill my glass one last time, stood a little shakily, and put the bottle on a side table beside the vase of oriental lilies. A little water slopped out of the vase and I wiped it up with the hem of my T-shirt.
“Messy, messy,” I said thickly.
By now it was full dark. I switched on the sea urchin lamp, the tiny bulb inside casting a rosy glow through the curved shell. A pink haze hung above the table, a lovely soft globe like a fairy lantern floating in the darkened room. I returned to the couch and lay back with my head resting against the kilim’s rough wool, the wineglass held between my hands, the sweet clear voices of the madrigal singers rising and falling in the room about me like the wind. Like the sea, like waves rushing and receding while I rested there, dreaming and untroubled in the sultry tropic night, while in the garden a single mockingbird sang.
Much later I awoke. The madrigal singers had been replaced by a man speaking in a very soft urgent voice about the need for a more efficient Capitol police force. I sat up, blinking, and put my empty glass on the floor. My watch said ten-thirty. Time for bed.
I hadn’t eaten dinner, but I wasn’t hungry, or even thirsty. The wine had left me with a feeling of drowsy well-being, as though I’d eaten that fairy fruit that eases all hunger and thirst and slows the passage of time. I yawned and started to get up, wondering if to was too late to call Baby Joe.
But at the edge of the couch I stopped.
The room was on fire. Shadows leapt across the walls, black and red and white, the air was thick with smoke, and I heard a persistent frantic sound like flames crackling. I stumbled to my feet and sent my wineglass spinning across the slate floor. I looked around, flushed with fear and wine: but there was no smoke, only the thick steamy mist that often appeared on the hottest summer nights. In the background the man’s voice droned on and the wind rustled in the leaves, a sound like rushing water. Weirdly colored shadows moved upon the walls, rose red, velvety black, amber. Tentatively I crossed the room, until I stood beside the harvest table.
Something was trapped inside the sea urchin lamp. Its shadow darted across the room’s walls as it beat frantically against the curved interior of its prison. The sound I had thought to be flames was its wings banging against the bulb. There was an unpleasant smell, as of scorched cloth.
I took the globe in my hand. It was quite hot, and I nearly dropped it. Very carefully I lifted it, holding it away from me so whatever was inside would fly out toward the open front door. For a moment or two it continued to thrash around. Then suddenly it emerged—very slowly, as though exhausted by its battle.
Antennae first, long as my forefinger and extravagantly feathered; then its long jointed legs, its thick brown-furred body and finally its wings. Huge wings, I was amazed there had been room for them inside. And how could it have gotten in there, surely the opening at the bottom was too small?
For a moment it poised on the sea urchin. Then it fluttered onto the table, landing beside an oblong drop of water spilled from the vase. I fixed the lamp, then squatted beside the table to watch it, marveling.
It was an enormous butterfly, a beautiful creature like a swallowtail, patterned with black-and-yellow stripes and dots. But the coloring was all wrong for a swallowtail—more orange than yellow, and the border around its wings was not black but a deep, rich purple. The edges of its wings were frayed from battering at the inside of the lamp. It opened and closed them slowly, as though trying to gather the strength to fly again. Then it fluttered up to perch on the lip of a yellow lily. After another minute it spread its wings again, and fluttered back down to the tabletop.
“Well,” I said, yawning, “enough ‘Wild Kingdom’ for tonight. I’m going to bed.”
I turned to close the front door, when something zoomed from the corner of the ceiling where the hornet’s nest was perched.
“Shit!”
I scrambled backward as an angry buzzing filled the room: An enormous yellow jacket, big as my thumb and striped black and red, dived through the air to land on the table. The butterfly quivered, but before it could move the yellow jacket seized it, crawling atop it with wings beating so fast they were a dark blur.
I yelled and grabbed a magazine, slammed it against the table. The butterfly dropped to its side, the yellow jacket still clinging to it. Shouting I banged the table again. This time the wasp fell from its prey. Before it could move I smashed it flat, hitting it so hard I had to grab the sea urchin lamp before it could crash to the floor. When I finally stopped the yellow jacket was a reddish smear on the table top, its legs still feebly twitching. The butterfly had wafted to the floor and lay there, dazed.
Shuddering I scraped the dead wasp from my table and shook it outside, then got a broom and very, very gently prodded the football-sized nest hanging in the corner, terrified that a cloud of yellow jackets would come pouring out. When the nest toppled and fell to the floor I shrieked and ran outside.
But there were no wasps. The nest lay there like a softly deflated grey balloon, its white honeycombed innards spilling onto the floor. When I was certain it wasn’t going to give birth to any more insects, I swept it outside, got some matches, and set it aflame. I watched it burn, the papery fragments disappearing before my eyes into the humid night air. Finally I went back inside.
The butterfly had flitted to one of the bookshelves. It was quite still, its wings stirring slightly in the draft. I left it and went to the harvest table to turn off the lamp.
“God damn it,” I swore beneath my breath.
Where the wasp had been crushed, the wood was puckered and blistered, as though something caustic had been spilled there. I moved the vase to cover the spot, turned to salute the valiant little butterfly, and stumbled off to bed.
When I went downstairs the next morning the butterfly was still there. On a whim I got out a Ball mason jar, punched a few holes in its lid, and went outside to pick a tiger lily. For good measure I threw in a frond of wisteria, sprinkling a few drops of water onto the greenery.
The butterfly didn’t move when I approached it. I was afraid it was dead, but its wings fluttered feebly as I slid it into the jar. When I got to the museum, instead of going directly to my floor, I went to see Maggie Lucas in her office by the Insect Zoo.
“Hi, Katherine. Care for a dead hissing cockroach?” Maggie held up an insect almost as large as her hand. “We’ve got plenty.”
“No hanks.” I moved a stack of magazines from a chair, plunked my jar on her desk, and sat down. “I want to make a donation.”
“Oooh, a butterfly! A pretty bug.” Maggie slipped the giant cockroach into a Baggie. She was a plump matronly woman in her fifties, a lepidopterist and assistant curator of the Insect Zoo, where in addition to the giant hissing cockroaches she watched over a beehive, a worm tank, numerous ant farms, bottles of pupating moths, an aquarium swimming with giant carnivorous water bugs, and a terrarium full of scarab beetles. “Now, what have we here?”
“I don’t know. It was in my house last night.” I told her about finding it inside the sea urchin lamp, and also about the yellow jacket that had attacked it. “I never saw anything so vicious—”
“Oh, that’s pretty common. Some kinds of wasps are carnivorous, you know, and some of them even lay their eggs on caterpillars. Now, let’s see what you’ve got—”