WISH
An hour later, we're standing in Dad's Greenhouse outback. The flowers and plants are still alive, growing, like he never died ten years ago. I come in here sometimes to clean out the weeds creeping in from outside. They're so hardy, drawn to all this life, that I always miss a few. So, while we're waiting, I pull out a few, adding them to the waste bucket to dump later.
It's always hard, being near things that remind me of him. Memories of my childhood always come flooding back, even the negative ones where I'm yelling at him and throwing a childish tantrum. I know I can't take back those moments. I know no one is perfect. But I can't help but regret those fights. I wish they never happened, and instead, were more happy memories. More smiles and laughter.
But you can never change the past, and it's pointless to dwell on it.
"He's here." Aiya heads that way. Tires crunch on the gravel outside, coming to a stop near my house. Car doors open and shut. Before we know it, Gregori Concerto is appearing in the doorway, carrying a heavy metal box, based on the way his fingers grip it. Tight.
"Did you guys know your neighbors have buffalo?" Gregori says.
Aiya waves him off. "Yeah. They're always getting into our woods. We're always having to fix the fence on our side every year—" she stops short to reintroduce us. "You remember my best friend Wish and my cousin Ken? This is Gregori Concerto."
Ken gives him a guy nod that I'll never understand, while I shake his hand. "From the Gathering," I say. "Sorry, we couldn't talk more back then."
"It's alright. The situation was kind of... tricky at the moment," Gregori says, struggling further with the box.
Ken looks at his watch. "We should get started. The sun won't wait for us."
Aiya pats Gregori on the shoulder. "Ignore him. He's always been an ass. So, will this table do? It may look a little old, but the wood is so stable I could sleep on top of it."
Gregori looks it over, the length stretching in the middle from end to end of the Greenhouse. There are piles of used pots and tins stacked underneath, dirt caking the floorboards, and weeds peeking out from cracks and crevasses that I missed. He then looks at the glass dome, the years of aging and green film covering it. No one can see us from outside. Unfortunately, it's after three, so the temperatures are dropping by the hour.
"In here? Are you sure there isn't another place we can work?" Gregori asks, but everyone just stares at him. "Right. I can make this work. Just give me a minute."
Gregori heaves the heavy box onto the table, the wood creaking beneath its weight, but holds steady like Aiya said. He unlatches the box and it slowly falls open, like those kitchen drawers, easing to a stop until all his instruments and glass cylinders are ready for him to use. He pulls out a clear bag and pops it open into a small tent to cover the surface of the box. Gloves attached on the inside, so he can work without exposing the area.
"I'll need to disinfect the air in this containment area before I can begin. We need to make sure no other organisms are going to alter the testing," Gregori says. "Do you have the specimen with you?"
I hesitate for a second, but reach behind me on the shelf and pull out the jar. The paper butterfly flaps frantically against my palm, pushing and crawling, until I set it down on the table. It suddenly stops, so still, you'd think it was dead.
Gregori's eyes grow so large. He gently picks up the jar and peers close. "What is this?"
"A butterfly," I say. "Not from this world." Ken says my name, but I don't stop. "He needs to know, if we're really trying to get some answers here."
"Are you sure you want to know?" Aiya asks Gregori. "Once we tell you everything, your life will never be the same, again. You may be risking everything on this."
Gregori doesn't even take a second to think it over. "When you called me, I already knew there would be risks. This is what I've been working towards for over ten years. Any information we can uncover, especially from another planet, can help our race survive past its prime." He places the jar in the enclosed tent, whispering what sounds like a mantra, "He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life."
While Gregori's setting up, Aiya tells him everything from who we really are to the incident last Friday night. She glances over Sensei's death, but delves into detail after detail about Vear and his threats. After ten minutes of talking and answering questions, the tent has been disinfected. Gregori gets to work and he can't stop smiling.
"Wow. I just... I'm at a loss for words. It's really a lot to take in. To think your family has been living here for, you said three generations, and no one has suspected a thing." He stops for a second to ask Aiya, "The laser beam that NASA received. Does it have anything to do with Akane or this butterfly?"
That's a good question, actually.
"No, it's probably one of the voyagers," Aiya says. "Akane likes to keep to themselves."
Gregori nods his head in understanding. He's actually taking this really well.
"I'm surprised you're not geeking out. Learning that aliens are real and all," I say.
He carefully spreads gold dust from inside the jar onto a Petrie dish. "I've always believed aliens exist. If humans exist, then its only conclusive other life exists outside our solar system," he says, not once looking up. "Being able to test it, though, is another notion entirely. After I'm done here, we will need to wait twenty minutes for the results. In the meantime, I'll continue studying it and looking closer at the specimen."
I hug my arms, feeling a chill run through me. "Just be careful."
While we wait for the results, Gregori decides to take a chance and remove the butterfly from the jar. It hasn't moved an inch since going in the tent, eerily still even as the plastic prongs lift it up by the wing and sits beneath a microscope. A small screen magnifies it above the tent, zooming in closer and closer, until details beyond the naked eye are shown. Tiny sparkles dance around, twirling and multiplying as dust falls from the butterfly's wings.
"What is that?" I whisper, not far from Gregori's shoulder. I've seen enough Biology textbooks to know those don't look like your typical DNA cells.
He's just as hypnotized as I am. "I don't know, but... I think it's healing itself."
"What?" Ken startles us; he's near Gregori's other shoulder, leaning on the table. "What do you mean healing itself? That's impossible. I've searched all of Akane's history and not one text mentioned the butterfly could self-heal."
"But no one has looked at the butterfly this closely, either," Aiya interjects.
"Look at this," Gregori slides out a laptop from beneath the case. It's hardwired in to the tent, collecting data more than likely. He pulls up a few files until he stops and finds the file he's looking for. A video plays on the screen, mimicking the one we're seeing in real-time, but different. "Here our cells are restoring itself after applying the healing ointment we invented at BioGENEtics. Comparing their speeds from a glimpse, I'd say the butterfly is healing a thousand times faster, if not more."
"So, you're saying it would be really difficult to rip a wing off," I say. Ken and Aiya meet my gaze and know exactly what I'm talking about. We couldn't destroy it.
Gregori doesn't notice the growing tension. "Exactly! And if you look at its body, the structure is made out of what we perceive as paper, but when I do this," he pokes the wing with the prong, "its wing doesn't bend back like a crease. It flaps like skin or the ear of a cat."
This entire time I've been trying to protect this butterfly from danger, knowing that we could destroy it in the end if we deemed it unsafe. Now, we don't have a fall back. If we can't destroy it, then why hide it anymore? It all seems so pointless.
"Have any of you touched this with your barehand?" Gregori suddenly asks, and just like that, a new fear unlocks. The butterfly crawling in my cloaks hood, brushing my skin, shimmering gold dust over my nose.
My voice speaks before my brain can keep up. "I have."
Gregori's lips thin into a grim line. "I don't want to alarm you... but I think we should test your blood to see if you've been infected."
Ken's back stiffens. He stands closer to Gregori as if intimidation will give us answers, struggling between anger and fright. "What do you mean infected? Do you think she's been poisoned? Is that what you're saying?"
Aiya squeezes my shoulder, reassuring me she's right here, through thick and thin. I grasp her hand, squeezing back. "Wish is a dreamwalker, though. She's built differently. Shouldn't that help prevent something like this from happening?"
Gregori smiles, but his gaze gives another answer, sorrow and doubt. "It's possible, but we won't know unless we run some tests."
"Okay," I nod, "take some blood. We'll see what happens."
He nods back with more hope this time. "It could be nothing. Or it could mean you have self-healing now." He tries to lighten the mood, and it works for a brief moment.
That's right. It has to be nothing. It's been, what? Four days since I went to Akane. Shouldn't I already be having symptoms? I mean, every time I get the Flu Shot, I always have a runny nose the next day. I was only slightly exposed to the butterfly. My symptoms so far have been tiredness and a day of fatigue. Nothing more.
I should be fine. Stop worrying about this.
My phone rings.
While Gregori's getting the needle and vials ready, pulling them out of the metal box like a magic trick, I slide the phone from my back pocket. Ken's picture pops up on my screen. Just what I needed, a moment of distraction.
"Your phone's calling me. Guess someone found it," I say, answering it. "Hello?"
"Hello, Dreamwalker."
I nearly drop my phone.
Chills run down my spine, cooling my skin.
I feel like I might pass out.
It's him. It's Vear. There's no mistaking his voice.
That day comes back to haunt me. The way his breath hit my neck. The suffocating grip on my wrists. The Faceless Fox and his dark chuckles. Vear's silky voice, hypnotic in a way that pulls you into his shadows.
That scar across his face.
Kusanagi's death. That makes me grip the phone and lean on the table for support. "What do you want?" I hiss.
"You know what I want," Vear says. "Bring me the paper butterfly and no one else has to die in your place."
I very much doubt that, but that doesn't mean I'm tempted to end things here and now. If Mari gets ahold of it, I know how bad things can get, but will they be worse with Vear? Who is the lesser of two evils? I put my phone on speaker, quietly telling them it's Vear.
"Why should I hand the paper butterfly over to you?" I ask, setting it flat on the table. "Maybe I need its power for my own uses."
He goes silent. I can feel his anger through the phone. "All who have consumed the butterfly before you have died a horrible death. If that is what you desire, so be it. I can always remove it from your corpse."
Ken moves to say something snappy. I stop him, but not Aiya in time. "Listen here, buddy. Threatening my friend will only get you burned to a crisp." Fire ignites in her palm. Wide eyed, Gregori jumps back. "Go back to Akane before I find you and break your skinny neck!"
Vear actually chuckles at her threats as if she's a chihuahua yelling at a wolf. "I know where you live. I know who guards you. Interesting the kind of information you can retrieve from such a small device." He pauses, while I look at Ken. He's not supposed to have anything that's Andreatte related saved on there.
Ken shakes his head, whispering, "He's lying. It's a trap."
I believe him, but that doesn't mean Vear doesn't know our location. Who knows what Kusanagi Sensei told him. He could know everything about us, or very little at all.
I lean against the table, palms flat on either side of the phone. Now that we know we can't destroy it, this is getting more dangerous. We're now talking about bringing the fight to our home. How many more people have to die over this butterfly? Is keeping it away from Vear really the right answer here?
He won't stop until he gets it.
"Fine. Let's meet up. But I'll choose the time and place," I say.
"You can't be serious," Aiya harshly whispers.
"Don't be rash." Ken doesn't whisper at all.
Gregori just stays quiet, putting his focus back on the paper butterfly. The clear tent doesn't hide the noise from glass hitting glass, tools moving around, but what it does is help clear the tension in the air.
I let out a long breath and quickly press mute before I second guess it. "We can't hide from Vear forever. You've both said it yourself; he's obsessed. And he won't stop until I'm either dead or he has the butterfly in his hands."
"Or he could do both," Gregori murmurs.
Aiya gawks at him. "Not helping—but he's right. He could do both."
"Then tell me what to do!" All of this arguing is getting us nowhere.
I bury my head into my hands. The table's wood digs into my elbows, threatening to leave splitters in my sleeves and skin. I hate this. My stomach rolls and heart won't slow down. I might throw up on the ground any second. This pressure—it's too much.
"Wish is right. We can't keep hiding from him," Ken finally says, but I can tell it takes everything in him to agree. His words are strained. "There's a House Party tomorrow night. We could meet him there in the crowd, around witnesses."
That way he can't kill me out right without making a scene. If there's one thing I know about the Nisha, they love to keep their bloody affairs quiet and unnoticed. It's not a solid plan, but it's a plan at the very least. One I can get behind and doesn't put my life at too much risk.
Vear growls through the speaker. "My patience grows thin, Dreamwalker..."
I unmute the phone before seeing if Aiya agrees, because at this point, we're out of time. "There's a party tomorrow night near campus. Meet me there and I'll consider handing you the paper butterfly," I say, trying to sound confident when I feel anything but.
Vear's voice is darker and menacing. "Why should I trust you?"
"You said it yourself. You know where to find me. What choice do I have." I swipe through my phone, find the party details with Ken's help, and forward the address to Vear. "There's the location. See you at 8pm. And if you kill anyone before then, I swear to the stars, I will rip that paper butterfly to shreds without a second thought."
Bluffing has always been my strength, let's hope it works this time.
For a long minute he's quiet. The kind of quiet that has my hair standing on edge. I imagine if I were in front of him, his eyes would be so filled with rage, a cold deadly silence that could kill you. He finally says, "Very well, Dreamwalker. I'll grant you this reprieve only once. Don't expect this generosity a second time."
Vear ends the call. It's done. There's no turning back.
I let out a long breath and take another to ease away the tension of that call. He either knows it can't be destroyed or he's also in the dark about the butterfly's capabilities. Regardless, we have 28 hours to come up with a plan, or else I'll be dead tomorrow night.