Butterfly Cavities (or, the Saltwater Girl)

The Beginning and the End

In June I met a woman whose hair was slick with saltwater, though we were five hundred miles from the coast. The heavy scent of brine wreathed her throat, and her lidded eyes reflected no light. She spoke only in whispers, breath cool against my ear. Of course I knew she’d kill me. I was in love with her instantly.

She found me swaying at the border of a bonfire’s light, clutching a half-empty can of wine. Dozens more cans, not mine, littered the weeds and gravel underfoot. We were in the empty lot at the edge of town, where scraggly farm fields faded into gnarled national forest. Occasionally, headlights would drift by, illuminating the cracks in the only road in and out of Notice. Someone was supposed to be stationed at the shoulder, on the lookout for cops - though what were Notice’s three cops really going to do against every teenager and college-age junkrat in town? We’d never been raided before.

Shitty punk music blared through shitty speakers and quivered against the sky. Young pretty bodies undulated in shadows around the fire, whose smoke obscured the waxy bulb of the moon. Sparks, laughter, stinging vodka shots. The faint coil of marijuana. Behind us, ancient pines and birches swayed their creaky arms and rustled with mice and monsters. Well, maybe not monsters, plural. Maybe just one. Man-made.

She was probably shuffling through the woods right now, dirt and decayed leaves sticking to the wet arches of her feet, brambles slicing little spiderwebs into the bare meat of her calves. I bet she was humming, just left of tune. A song about the garden. Something in the garden.

Anyway, I loathed the parties. I’d been coming every summer, every weekend, every year, since I was sixteen. I was twenty three now (which was its own little tragedy). Each summer I loathed it more. There was nothing else to do, though. And if you didn’t go you’d just hear all the gossip secondhand, because everyone else went, so you might as well see it all for yourself. I balanced my loathing by refusing to talk to just about anyone, dwelling with myself and nursing a can, watching the interesting bits play out in silence.

By “interesting bits,” I of course mean the jealous fistfights between childhood best friends, and the groping stoners, and the inevitable circle of teenage girls who believe they’re going to summon a demon in the back corner of the lot. I liked those teenage girls best. For one thing they never got drunk, because they were straight-laced enough to wait. They were also trying to obfuscate their magic-doing. “Magic.” I enjoyed lingering around these girls, in a way I prayed came off more "older brother" than "creep" - questioning the intricacies of their spells: which crystal is that? which herb? which abandoned Blogspot account did you find your incantation on? shouldn’t you guys wait until the full moon? - and watching while they held sweaty hands and chanted in fake Latin around a wobbly salt circle. Most of them would give up and move on in about twenty minutes, giggling and poking each other. But there was always that one, spiteful determination burning in her eyes, who would stick out the whole night, clinging to the girlhood hope that she'd been a true witch all along.

I wonder now if there really was a witch in our midst that night. If the woman was summoned on purpose, instead of stumbling across Notice, and me, by freak accident. I’m not sure which is worse, but I guess it doesn’t matter either way.

Like I said, I was standing there alone on the edge of everything, shoulders curling and uncurling out of time to the tinny guitar solo that wrecked the air. It was muggy even after sundown, and sweat condensed on my lip, in between my shoulderblades, beneath the mop of my hair. I knew I’d be bit the shit up by mosquitos, but I was almost through my third wine and enjoying the warmth and the woodsmoke too much to worry about West Nile.

Then, a hand on my arm. Nimble and smooth as a stream-washed stone, slightly damp. Not tacky-damp, though, like from sweat; dripping-damp, like it’d just been dipped in a bowl of water. I jumped sideways and turned.