Page 18 of Together We Rot

My butterflies lie crumpled and broken, wings torn and bodies bent. My swallowtails, my monarchs, my glasswings. I’ve spent years tucked away in this room with pins and forceps. Prying the wings open, stabbing through the thorax, lining the wings up neatly to make them new. Alive.

Now the only thing they are is dead.

“Let the pain be a lesson,” my father sneers. “And don’t even dream of leaving again. You don’t know the extent of my wrath.” I watch as he retreats down the dark hall with my mother in tow. Inch by inch until there’s nothing left of him.

I am alone.

Time blurs with the ticking clock. I sit there for so long, staring at the damage, squeezing my eyes shut, praying it away—but God still isn’t listening. It’s all the same. There’s a graveyard at my feet, a sea of glass and corpses.

I scoop the remains of a moth. Glass slices through my fingers, but I hardly feel it. In my hands lies what used to be an Acherontia atropos. One of my most prized creatures, body split between a punch of bright yellow and a deep speckled brown. A death’s-head hawk moth.

Next to it, I see my comma and my emperor moth. The antennae are torn off and the wings are a shredded imitation of their former glory. There will be no putting any of them back together again. The tears pour before I can stop them. They gush from my bloodshot eyes, raining down my cheeks and trickling off my chin to the floor. I imagine them scorching right through the wood. All that’s left is a sticky, consuming grief, and I worry I’ll drown beneath its waves. I’ll sink so deep that I’ll never come back.

No more school. No more Lucas. No more Kevin. No more butter-flies or moths. No more anything.

Try as I might to snuff out the ache, it lingers, heavy in my ribs. It weighs down my lungs until breathing is a chore.

A sound breaks me out of my thoughts. Beneath the floorboards, the front door creaks open. There’s a flurry of movement, a shuffle of feet and whispered words. I press my ear to the floor, straining to listen.

Sheriff Vrees’s voice is gruff and low. “We need to take care of that boy sooner than later. If you can’t keep an eye on your own son, Ezekiel, I’ll do it. Got a nice little cell with his name on it.”

Cell? Oh God, it’s the drinking, isn’t it? I broke the law and now I’m going to get fitted for handcuffs and spend my life in an orange jumpsuit and—

“Prudence’s due date is soon. What would we have done if she went into labor and your boy was frolicking off somewhere?”

Huh?

My dad’s voice enters the mix. “It will do you well to not speak to me in my own home like that, Mark. You forget I’m still the Right Hand. Nothing has changed.”

Vrees snorts darkly, not a lick of fear in his tone. He stands his own against my father in ways I could only dream of. “Nothing yet, Ezekiel, but the clock is ticking before we need to cut out the seed for the next Alderwood.”

What?

My fear and confusion act as puppet strings, carrying me toward the door with a dark, insatiable curiosity. The voices grow more muffled as the visitors retreat into the living room, but my mind is clear.

Go look.

I’m careful to step around the broken glass to avoid the loud, telling crunch of my feet. My mouth has become painfully dry. I try to swallow, but there’s nothing left.

I’m used to being quiet. I’ve mastered the art of blending into walls and keeping each step as soft as possible. Years of walking across eggshells will do that. Even so, I’m terrified that the flurried beating of my heart will break the silence. I’m worried my father will sniff out my pulse and hurt me worse than he ever has before.

If that’s possible.

But I have to know what they’re talking about. The hallway stretches downward into a steep staircase. I creep to the second step and peer beyond the wall of railing. The lights haven’t been switched on, but candles cast shadowy silhouettes.

The smell hits me first. Thick and rotten like curdled milk, potent as poison. It’s always lingering in town like a vile aftertaste, spilling out from the thawing woods. It’s never been pungent inside my own house, though.

This is much, much stronger. It stretches in every direction, soaking into the floor and pushing back out like weeds.

My own thoughts briefly return, snapping back with a painful fury. If I thought this through, maybe I would have thought better of it. My dad will see me. I know he will.

None of that seems to matter. I’m already here. I bend against the side of the stairs, running a careful hand along the banister.

The Pine Point police stand behind Vrees like disciples to a prophet. There’s a whole swarm of them here in the living room, badges on and faces stern.

My father’s broad shoulders stiffen. “I am more than aware, Mark.” Dad runs a wild hand through his hair. “But we risk a spectacle with you driving him to the station. If anyone sees him—”

“Everyone has already seen him.” Vrees shoves a finger against my father’s chest and I have to bite back a gasp.

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