Naomi Hirahara - Santa Cruz Noir

The next day I got up early and drove to the university provost’s office to check on paperwork and orientation. In the afternoon I headed home and Madison was waiting on the front step.

“Hello, my new tutor.”

“Yes, I suppose I am. You’ll have to tell me where you are in your studies so we can plan a course of study.”

“I need to know everything. For instance, who is sending you notes and boxes?” Right next to Madison’s Mary-Jane’d foot was yet another box and note.

“Tell you what, Madison — why don’t we start in an hour? I have to eat some lunch and attend to a few things first. I will meet you up at your place.” Again I whipped inside the house and dead-bolted the door behind me.

I opened the box. In it was a silver charm bracelet. Each charm was a butterfly but one was a tombstone. My name and birth date was inscribed on the largest charm. With a question mark at the other side for a death date.

You aren’t going to make it here.

I got out my laptop and began hunting for other places to live. Perhaps someone knew someone at the college who could put me up a couple of days. There was a knock. Of course, Madison had come back already. But it was Sharon. She had mail in her hand for me. A letter from the college. It was one of those glassine envelopes with something pink inside.

“Did your job get cut? That seems to happen all the time these days.” Sharon half-smiled.

Indeed. I figured I might as well open it up in front of her.

Something had happened with the funding. The job was on hiatus but the department head was sure they’d find funding from another source.

“Seems like it’s a great windfall for us. We can use you full time!” Sharon acted like she’d won a prize at the Boardwalk. “Let’s get a drink up at my house, shall we? When are they going to treat academics with the respect they deserve?”

“I told Madison I’d tutor her in an hour.”

“And you will , but first a drink! Then I’ll show you the library where she takes her lessons.”

Sharon led me by the hand up to the main house. I was stunned that my prestigious job was gone so fast, so fleetingly. A nice glass of wine was needed. At least Sharon is understanding , I thought.

“Let’s drink in the wine cellar. We had it custom-made and built into the hillside. It’s like a little café in there!”

I followed in Sharon’s footsteps. She punched a code in the side of the cellar door and a metal door opened. There were rows and rows of bottles inside. A little French café table and two chairs in the middle. She offered me the nicest one and found a pinot noir she thought would suit the occasion.

I drank two glasses on an empty stomach. And then a third. I felt sleepy. I felt Sharon’s fingers on my face brushing my hair back behind my ear. “It’s so unfair what you’ve been through!” she said. I felt her kiss on my neck. Then I felt nothing at all.

I woke up groggy and in my own bed. I couldn’t remember a thing after that kiss. There was no sign of anyone around me. I made coffee. I called Sharon’s number but there was no answer so I left a message: “Uh, it’s me. I don’t think this is going to work out. Money isn’t everything.” I opened the front door thinking perhaps Madison was out there, but she wasn’t.

I took Maddy’s advice from the other day. I drove out to Natural Bridges State Park to check out where the monarch butterflies migrate to hang in the trees by the thousands. A group of schoolchildren was leaving as I entered the trail. They’d all just been down there, so why couldn’t I do the same?

If you’re like me and don’t have the best vision, you don’t notice the butterflies, at first. But as you go closer to the trees, you realize they are moving. Thousands of monarchs beat their wings about the eucalyptus and pine so that trees appear to dance. They move back and forth like a kelp forest in a tide zone. Orange and black and white, so thick that the tree colors are hidden. The farther you go on the trail, the thicker the colony. By the end of the path there seem to be nothing left but the beating of a million orange wings.

It had a dizzying effect. I stumbled and found a park bench to sit on. My breath was quick — like the life of a butterfly itself. Had Madison known the effect it would have on me? Had she suggested this place for a reason? I wanted to be kind now — to bridge whatever it was that had set me to hate her. But I couldn’t help it.

And then I saw a girl around Maddy’s same age, staring up at me from an opposite bench. She had a neck brace on.

“I’m Ashley,” she said, “the dead girl who fell from the tree. Perhaps you heard of me? You’re one of the tutors, aren’t you?”

“I guess I am,” I said.

Ashley pulled a phone from her pocket and called a number. “Found her. I can wait till you arrive,” she said.

“You’re not dead?” I asked. I reached out to see if she was a ghost.

“Well, of course I am. But I have a job now.”

Two figures appeared at the top of the trail. It was Sharon and Bradley in their Land’s End trench coats. They smiled and waved.

“You need to remember to ask permission, young lady,” Sharon said, marching up to my side. “We can’t have you just wandering off like that. Give Bradley your keys.”

I did as I was told and dug into my pocket to get them. At the same time, I pulled out the cocoon pin and the butterfly necklace.

“What is that?” Sharon shrieked. Her whole body pulled away from me, like she was retreating into the air itself. Bradley stepped forward to shield her, but with the amulets in my hand, he too screamed and flapped away.

Ashley cackled hysterically.

“What’s going on?” I asked her. “What’s happening to them?”

“Nothing they don’t deserve,” she said. “But you’ve broken the spell. Thank you.” She sat down on the bench again. Her neck sank brokenly against her shoulder. Her eyes closed and she slumped over — and died.

I put the necklace around my neck and the pin on my dress. Sharon and Bradley squawked like chickens in a pen, helpless. They couldn’t get any closer and they couldn’t run away.

Wherever the jewelry touched on my skin it felt warm. I clasped the charm bracelet on my wrist and noticed that the butterflies seemed to be moving. Wings flying around my wrists. Sharon and Bradley were naked.

“Aargh — after all we’ve done to help teachers like you! We’re the only ones who really care anymore!” Sharon screamed.

“We rented for under market value! You should have been grateful!” Bradley seconded his wife.

I heard a wind come up from the eucalyptus — one of the strongest I’d ever heard, deafening. It was the monarchs’ wings. They were swarming, and all at once they descended upon the couple — a whole grove of butterflies — onto Sharon and Bradley’s pink flesh. I backed away and left the butterflies to it. None of them touched me.

Madison was waiting for me at my car. “Thanks,” she said. “CPS was totally useless, you know. You were far better.”

“I’m not even sure what I did,” I said.

“You weren’t really willing to be bought.”

“Oh yeah,” I said.

“You don’t have to move out, you know... and I kind of need a guardian now. At least on paper.”

Madison had a point. The housing market still sucked.

“Okay,” I said. “Just promise me not to lurk around the cottage so much?”

“I’ll try not to lurk at all.”

“We’ll see how it goes,” I said. The fog had rolled all the way in. I drove us home. My jewelry had cooled off. It felt just right on my skin.