Mara's Butterfly
an excerpt

Chapter One – Under the Apple Tree

Many of the important moments in Mara’s life seemed to happen under the apple tree. It stood at the top of the hill, overlooking softly fields that flowed in the breeze. Seated the blue picnic table underneath its branches, she could look upon her little house to the east, the little Paritine river to the west, and if she strained a little, looking through the bank of trees, the fields of the Tulmilly’s farm to the north, and sometimes a glimpse of Kam, tilling them or training the Cervae deer. It was a simple spot. She had a thousand simple memories of the place that seemed, when she thought about it, to all build up to the bigger more important ones and form a whole, like the notes of a song. She could not think of one without the others.
Which is why, on that day in October, Mara was not thinking about what she would say to Kam. She was remembering a conversation with her mother, from many many years ago. It had been Summer then. Her sleek black hair was well down her back. She had been sitting on the bench of the picnic table, and her mother sat behind her on the table itself, putting her hair into long neat braids. Mara sat there with her hands on her bare legs (she had been allowed to wear shorts then, she remembered, so she couldn’t had been older than eight) watching Kam playing fetch with his little spotted dog Grip in the fields.
Or perhaps she hadn’t been watching, but just looking in their direction. She had been as deep in thought as an eight year old girl can be. So deep in thought in fact that she did not notice her mother, who had been brushing out the yet to be braided portions of Mara’s hair, had snagged a knot and ripped a few strands out clean off her head.
“Oh goodness! Sorry dear.”
“Hmmm? What? Oh. Umm, it’s okay.”
And the little Mara had gone back to staring into the field.
“Is something troubling you dear? You seem awfully distracted today.”
“No. Well, not really. I’m just thinkin’, mother.”
“What are you thinking about?”
Mara paused. Later on she remembered actually wondering if she should ask the question, which she had never wondered before. She had always been very inquisitive and her parents answered her questions best they could. But this had seemed different. She knew it was a very adult subject. Perhaps she had been afraid she wouldn’t understand, or worse, that her mother might not want to explain. Eventually, however, her childish curiosity got the better of her.
“I was just wondering about the Red Butterflies. And where they came from. They aren’t like other butterflies, like that orange and black one that flew by yesterday. They’re not like them at all are they?”
And to Mara’s immense relief her mother had smiled, and sighed in that way that she knew to mean that she was pleased.
“No, Mara. You are right. They are as different as day and night.”
But then she had hung her head a little and looked troubled.
“I have been wondering for some time when you would ask this of me. And for the life of me, I still don’t quite know how to answer. It’s very complicated.”
Mara frowned. “That’s what you said about where baby’s come from. Maybe we should go talk to someone at the Church, like we did then.” She never would had recommended such a thing if she hadn’t been so eager to find the answer to her question. Her talk about babies with a large and slightly mustached church Mentor called Mrs. Bruthard had been the singularly dullest conversation that she had ever had. But something in what Mara said had triggered a thought for her mother, whose face lit up like a flash of quickfire.
“No, Mara, I don’t think we’ll need Mrs. Bruthard this time around. I want you to start by telling me all that you remember about where babies come from.”
“You want ME to TELL you?!”
“Yes. Don’t worry,” she added, catching sight of her daughter’s face. “We’ll get on to the Butterflies soon. Just tell me what you remember dear.”
Mara blinked a few times and took a moment to compose herself. She had not been expecting a quiz.
“Well. Girls are born with other souls inside them that aren’t theirs. Well, I mean, they ARE theirs… but they’re not THEIR soul. Ya know, not the one that they’re using. They’re the souls of the kids that she’ll have later. And… umm, yeah and when the dad adds his part to the soul in the mom, the soul begins to form a baby around it in the mom’s stomach. And the dad’s part is called a sperm and the mom’s part is a… a… oh yeah! An egg. Like a chicken egg.”
She looked up at her mother hopefully, “is that right mother?”
“Yes Mara, that’s exactly right. More right than you think, I believe. Chicken eggs are the same thing. They’re just a lot smaller in a person. A woman may have lots and lots of them in her, but there is only one egg in the mother’s womb at any one time, waiting for the father’s sperm. That’s called fertilizing, when the mother’s and father’s parts come together. Only a fertilized egg can become a baby.
“I know you know all about chicken’s, Mara. I see you helping Kam with them all the time. And I’m sure he’s told you, or maybe you’ve noticed yourself, that the Tulmilly’s haven’t had a rooster on their farm for a few months now. But the chicken’s still lay eggs, don’t they?”
“Yeah. Yeah they still lay eggs. But how…?”
“You see, the egg in the mother’s womb can only stay there for so long – about a month – before her body has to get rid of it if it hasn’t been fertilized. The time is shorter with chickens, of course, but it’s basically the same. They lay an egg that just can’t hatch into a chick. It’s just a shell with a chicken soul inside.
“You know the difference between animals and people don’t you Mara? Not little things like, we can talk and they can’t and things. The REAL difference?”
The child scoured her brain for anything that might answer this question. Is it that people are smarter? That we can build things? She riffled through her thoughts and finally, came across something that Mrs. Bruthard had droned to her some years past.
“The Sculptress loves us more?”
Her mother smiled, benevolently. “Exactly. Mara, I know you haven’t been to Church yet, but I’m sure you’ve heard that a soul never dies, right?”
She nodded, with her half braided hair flopping around her small freckled face.
“Turn around, dear. We can keep talking while I finish your hair. Well anyway, when a chicken dies, their soul stays here on earth and becomes another chicken. They will stay here on earth for eternity, living their simple lives over and over.”
Mara’s mother glanced across the field to the little sandy haired boy and the black and white blur that was Grip the dog.
“Who knows how many dogs Grip has been before he was born as Grip. And he’ll be countless more after he dies. Your great great grandchildren might play with Grip someday. Though maybe he’ll be bigger than, or maybe he’ll brown, or have floppy ears. But he’ll be Grip all the same.
“And the same is true for the souls of animals that are never born. They just get another chance, and another, and another until they get born, and die, and do it all over again. It is a good existence, not a punishment. The Sculptress loves them too. But human souls are special.
“I know that you know, when a person dies, our soul goes on to the Afterworld. Well that’s true whether we are born or not. You see, instead of just dumping the egg after it’s month in the womb is up, the egg becomes a Red Butterfly. It flies away to join other souls in the Afterworld, just as if it had lived like us.”
Mara was breathless. She turned to her mother, blinking with astonishment, unsure of what to say. Her mother simple grabbed Mara’s face, and turned her away, so she could continue braiding.
“So… they fly out of you. And they go to the Afterworld. Just like if they’d lived.”
“Yes.”
A breeze rustled the leaves of the apple tree and Mara felt, for the first time she could remember, simply amazed by her world.
“And that’s why,” he mother continued, oblivious to the cathartic moment her daughter was experiencing, “girls have to wear skirts when they get older. So that they can fly out without, you know, getting stuck.
Mara giggled briefly, but it seemed somehow wrong to her.
“Isn’t it, ya know, kinda sad though mom? Cause, every Butterfly could have been a kid, right? They could have lived?”
“I can be sad sometimes. When your father and I were trying to have you, well, there can a time when I really thought I was pregnant. We couldn’t have been happier. But, well, I guess it just wasn’t meant to be yet, because one day there came a Butterfly. I won’t deny it Mara, I cried. I was so ready to be a mother. The little thing even stuck around for two days. It knew I was upset. But by the time it flew away, I was feeling better and next month, no Butterfly came, and later that year there was you! We’ll see him in the Afterworld someday, and all the other little souls that may have been your siblings. We’ll have the chance to meet because the Sculptor loves us best of all. So we shouldn’t be sad”
Mara sighed. This was not exactly the answer she was looking for.
“But mother, they don’t have a chance to LIVE though! They can’t play and have a mom, or pick apples in the fall! They can’t have friends or play with dogs or anything fun! They can’t, ya know, be here. They can’t help people. They can’t make a difference on earth!”
“Oh no, Mara. That’s where you’re wrong. Maybe they can’t play or go apple picking, but they CERTIANLY make a difference. They leave behind a trail of something very very special on their way to the Afterworld. Mara, do you know what Veritas is?”
Mara gasped. “Isn’t… isn’t Veritas what let’s us Sculpt?!”
“Yes. After you’ve had your first Butterfly, you will be able to see the world in a new way. You can see what everything is made of, how the Sculptress put it all together. But more importantly you can see how to CHANGE it. Sculpt it.”
“So… so that’s why only girls can Sculpt? And why I can’t until after I’ve had my first Butterfly?”
“Well… well yes. Mostly. You’re body learns to use Veritias after you’ve had a Butterfly. But sometimes, very rarely, boys can learn to use it to.
“What? I thought Warlocks were only a myth?!”
“Firstly, I never want to hear you use that word again! Warlocks… you’d think we Sculptors were still called Witches the way people talk!”
“… I’m sorry mother.”
“No, Mara. It’s alright. You didn’t know. But no. Male Sculptors exist, I’ve met a few. they’re becoming more and more common, actually. Especially in cities. So many Butterflies are flying around in places like Great Bay, there’s so much Veritas about a few men are bound to figure out how to use it.”
“Great Bay? Maybe Kam’s met a few Warlo… I mean men who can Sculpt. He’s from there you know.”
“Of course. Maybe you’ll meet a few yourself. I’m sure you’ll go there someday. Most girls go to the Catherdral for at least a few months of study, as they get ready to go out into the world on their own. After they’ve been Sculpting for a few years.”
“How long? How long do I have to wait until I can Sculpt mother? I want to see the way the world really is! I want to go to the city!”
“Well, know one know when you’re first butterfly will come. It usually comes after you turn ten, but before you turn fifteen. I’ve known girls that haven’t had their first Butterfly until seventeen though. It’s different for everyone.”
“Seventeen?! That’s almost ten years! That’s twice as long as I’ve been alive now! I don’t want to wait mother!”
“It’s best just not to think about it dear. Some day, you’ll wake up and the world will be different, but nothing you can do will make that day come faster. So for now, let it out of your mind. I’ve finished your hair. Go find a stick and play with Grip and Kam.”
She had slouched through the field, reluctant at first and angrily breaking twigs off the branch she had half heartedly grabbed for the dog. But when Kam had caught sight of her he had run to her laughing and bounding over stones (he spent so much time tending for the Tulmillys’ farm he played with all the vigor of his puppy and more) and they had run with the dog chasing after them, tongue hanging and tail wagging, all the way to the river and back. She soon forgot her frustration, though she did remember later, as they lay in the grass, to ask Kam if he’d ever seen a Warlock and tell Kam that kids a thousand years from now may get to play with Grip too.

That summer had been ten years ago, Mara realized with wonder, as she stood at the base of the hill that lead to the apple tree. She could see Kam up there on the table and she knew that he was crying there. She had only seen him cry twice in all the years she had known him, but both times he had sat just like that with his head on his knees, shaggy straw-colored hair hanging over his eyes, and loosely hugging his legs.
Grip was dead. It was hard to believe. It seemed that only months ago Mara’s father had handed the young boy the squirming puppy from the Spring litter. But next to the table on the hill, she could see the little mound of dirt under which the dog surely lay. But all she could do was stand there, looking on hopelessly.
Mara’s mother shuffled up behind her, and gazed on the scene herself for a moment with silence.
“Mara. Go to him, he needs you.”
“I know, mother. But I don’t know what to say to him. I… I just don’t know if I can help.”
“Just going up there will help more than you can know.”
And so, slowly, she began to climb the hill. Kam looked up, with deep red rings around his eyes, before burying his face even deeper with the shame. Mara sat beside him on the bench, noting how desperately he tried to sound as though he had not been sobbing by breathing as deeply and steadily as possible. Slowly his breath became more even, and Mara ventured to speak.
“Kam?” was all she could think to say.
“He’s gone Mara. I can’t believe he’s gone.”
Mara glanced at the softly domed mound of dirt. He had dug the grave himself – Sculpted it, by the looks of it. There was no shovel to be seen. He had been improving lately.
“He’s not gone,” Mara added shyly. “Not really.”
Kam raised his head, shaking it from side to side, slowly. “Oh I know. He’ll be reborn. But he’s gone for ME. He’s left me here. Abandoned me. Mother sent me out here so she wouldn’t have to deal with a useless man around the boarding house. Even if I can Sculpt now. My father – who knows. My sisters are all over the world healing people and working for the Church. All I had was Grip… and, well… and you. And now Grip is… is…”
Kam looked away. But Mara found her voice.
“Oh don’t be silly Kam! You have tons of people! The Tulmillys love you like their own, and would never be able to run the farm without you anymore, especially now that Mrs. Tullmilly’s getting older and her Sculpting’s a little shoddy. Even if they COULD do it without you I doubt they would, the way you have with the Cervae and the chickens and goats… and you have my mother and father, too. They adore you, you know it. And your sister Karla just wrote you earlier this summer. She thinks of you all the time she told you so.”
“Not to mention, you are FAR from a “useless man”! You’re quite gifted, really, what being able to Sculpt and all. Don’t look like that, you’re very good you know. Better than a lot of GIRLS I know. Really, you are. I guess growing up in that horrible boarding house full of students in Great Bay did you some good… all those Butterflies around. Even if you’re mother did ignore you the whole time.”
“I’ll never…” Kam added shyly, “I’ll never be as good as you.”
“Oh, hogwash. I’m nothing special. And besides, you’re a good two years behind me. I’m practically done with puberty, I’m as good as I’m going to get. You’ve still got lots of time to surpass me. But even so, don’t think of it like that. For a man you’re practically a PRODIGY.”
“I’m barely Level 3… but anyway… the reason, well, one of the reason’s I asked your mother to send you up here… is well, I’d like you to Sculpt something. Something for Grip.”
Mara was taken aback.
“You’d like me to…”
“I want you to make him a little memorial. A sculpture of him. I know you could do him more justice than I could ever do. After all… you really Looked at him all the time. He was the first thing you really Saw wasn’t he? That day in the field?”
It was true. They had been walking through the fields on their way home from a dip in the river, dripping wet and laughing on a day when Mara was thirteen. Suddenly, Mara felt a little strange and stopped dead in her tracks. She could not explain why to Kam, except that she different or perhaps a little light headed. She had sat down for a moment, trying figure out what was wrong with her, when Grip had walked up to her with his little shaggy head cocked to one side with curiosity.
And it was as if the world came into focus for the first time. It was still Grip the dog, but no she could See him, she could see every little part of him. She saw how the miniscule water droplets clung to his fur, and how the droplets were made of smaller and smaller drops right down to a size so small that surely nothing could be smaller. She could see the little particles that made up ever strand of his fur. Mara looked into the dogs eyes and could the water inside, they mechanisms that made his eye lids open and close, that made his pupils open wider or narrower! And she realized, half with fascination, half with terror that she looked harder and hard she could see right through his eyes to the folds and furrows of the little dog’s brain, flashing with little sparks like a hammer on metal, sending thoughts and messages all over his tiny body. When the little Red Butterfly landed on her shoulder, she had fainted.
Trying to explain it to Kam later on, she could think of only this: it was like when her glasses first arrived and she had looked out her window at the apple tree. She had grown up without the glasses, they came when she was ten years old, in a little rectangular box from the city. She had put them on in her bed room, looking at her reflection in the mirror and the way she could read all the titles of the books on the shelf behind her and smiled. Then she had looked out the window and gasped.
The apple tree! Even from where she stood she could see every leaf on the tree! Every little leaf and branch and little mark in the trunk was right there as if she was standing right next to it, atop the hill! Every little leaf, flickering in the breeze, she had never even imagined the eye was supposed to be able to see that much from so far! Everything else, well seeing it better was nice and all, but the trees still fascinated her months later. And it had been just like that in the field with the little dog, as if he’d come into focus for the very first time.
The dog too, more than anything else, had fascinated her, and she would take him out for walks just so she could stare into and watch how his muscles worked and his lungs contracted. Of course she began to learn the normal things in church, like boiling water, making air into thick shields around her that no one could penetrate. Her mother even taught Mara her special talent, of taking a pile of chopped wood, picturing a piece of furniture in her head and suddenly making that wood into a solid, gleaming chair or table without a nail or a seam in it. When lightning had struck the picnic table on the hill, she had made a new one herself. But Mara always went back to stare at Grip, or other animals later on, but Grip was always her favorite. She, quite literally, knew the dog from the inside, out.
So when Kam asked her to make a statue of the late beast, Mara did not even reply. She simply walked over to the freshly chopped pile of wood next to the house, which she knew her mother had been saving to make a new hutch for a family down the road. Mara knew, though, that when she saw why her daughter had used it, she would not mind.
She selected four pieces, and placed them in a little pile on the ground. She sat in front of them, cross-legged and formed the image of Grip in her mind. Kam watched from beside her. She tried to hold in her head the placement of every hair on the dog’s body, the curvature of his spine, the thickness of his legs, the angle at which he cocked his head when he was happy, the exact length of his tail. She formed the most complete picture of him that she could, and held in her mind like an empty mould. Then, quickly as she could, she opened her eyes stared deeply into the wood, trying to See every last little particle of it and forced it to fit the mould she had imagined.
Kam knelt down, next the small wooden replica of his late dog, with his mouth slightly agar, blinking.
“It’s… it’s perfect Mara. It’s him. It’s him exactly.”
As if in shock, Kam even reached out to pet the statue. Even Mara had to admit she had not expected the sculpture to look so real. The eyes even had the right shine as they stared up at her. If he had not been the sandy amber color of wood with a slight grain to him… if he had been black and white she would have almost thought he would jump up to greet them. Kam moved his hand off of the dog’s head and smiled.
“You even made a little base for it! ‘Grip – an exhalent dog. May the world be lucky enough to see him live a thousand times again’,” Kam read aloud. His eyes weren’t quite so red anymore. He was happy.
“Let’s move him.”
Each of the teenagers took hold of the base and heaved the statue to the top of the hill, and the base of the grave. They stood together under the setting sun, admiring his memorial, and as a final touch Mara reached into the apple tree and snapped off a branch, stripping it of leaves and little twigs, and placed it in the dog’s slightly open mouth.
“There are kings who don’t have such a fine grave, Mara. He will never be forgotten.”
Kam turned to her, his eyes shining with happiness, not tears, and embraced her. They had hugged a thousand times over their childhood, Mara knew, but it had never felt like this. Maybe his hands were placed differently. But Mara knew the when he pulled himself from her, looking deep into her eyes with his hands still on her shoulders, that she had never before realized just how hansom her friend had become. Her face began to feel warmer. Slowly, he inched closer to her again.
“Mara?” he whispered.
“Yes, Kam?”
“There’s something that I’ve wanted to say. Since we were little.”
“What?”
Mara was very conscious of the world around her. She saw smile on Kam’s smart face, the way the breeze made the leaves of the apple tree twinkle like stars in the twilight, and even the lone sparrow, as it landed on the branch above her.
“I’ve just wanted to say…”
“Yes?”
But Kam’s eyes had shifted to the little sparrow, as it slowly raised its tail.
“Look out!” he bellowed, and pulled her towards him quickly. But the white goo that had issued from the creatures behind was already falling and by pulling her close to him it had landed squarely in Mara’s sleek black hair, in stead of the front of her blouse.
They stared at each other, for a moment, in horror. Mara could feel the warm squishy substance as it soaked deep into her hair. Then Kam, poor Kam, could not help put let out a solitary giggle and Mara’s eyes flashed at him angrily.
“It’s not funny! Do have any idea how it’s going to take me to wash this out!?”
But Kam was already sitting on the table, doubled over with laughter. He could only manage to sputter “I’m sorry” in between breaths.
“Oh stop laughing you bastard!” Mara screamed, and then immediately covered her mouth in horror. She had completely forgotten that Kam really was a bastard, until it was already out of her mouth and too late.
He did indeed stop laughing, though.
“No, oh no Kam I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“Of course you didn’t.” He didn’t look or sound angry, but she knew that she had crushed him. He would not look her in the eye, but hung his head as he stood. He turned away.
“It’s getting dark. I’d better go lead the Cervae back to the barn. You should go wash that out. I’ll see you at church tomorrow.”
And with his head down he walked away.
“No! Kam I’m sorry! Really I am!”
He turned his head, just slightly.
“I know - its okay. And I’m sorry I laughed at you. Go back to your parents. And thanks again. For Grip, and all.”
He walked away.