Butterflies and Vampires

CHAPTER 25

It's my mother.

My mother.

My mother! She gave me away!

The coldest feeling ran over me and I growled before crushing my temples with both hands.

It was you, mother! No, Elsie! You're not my mother. You gave me away.

Growing up and learning from Lorelei and crying and talking of escape—for yourself!

What a selfish and horrid person.

I leaned into my thin blanket and wept, still pressing on either sides of my head.

The dreams went on. No, they weren't dreams. They were all sent by the butterflies in the castle.

The truth behind Elsie—and Edith!

I ran out of my tower and to the halls of the castle, then remembered the other side. It was the west wing. We were forbidden to go there because it had been too big and they said we'd get lost in it, but that wasn't why.

The other tower was the tower in my dreams.

I approached it silently, then opened the door and went up the stairs slowly, my heart heavy and the memories of my mother distorted.

She had often cried at nights with the Elders. She had said a name, a boy's name, that I always blocked out. Why had I? Because I thought she'd be happy here, with me.

I stepped into the room and saw from the cloth covering it it was nearly identical to mine. They had taken so much trouble to make it that way. But something was off. Was it the table she sat at as my mother, once a child, brushed Lorelei's hair? Or the butterfly in the frame, it was larger and had a scratched frame. No, the walls—they were all scratched. Deep scratches that reached past the wallpaper.

"Margery."

I turned when I saw Agnes.

"Agnes."

"It's 'mother'."

The same ring as Edith. I grew cold and felt a lightness in my head.

"I know about my mother," I said, "I know she left me."

"What are you saying? She passed away."

"Then what about Edith? She died too? Like Elsie? I know!" I was screaming. It felt good to say everything I've wanted to say to her, I didn't care about the dungeon. I'd been hurt enough. "I know she chose to give me away so she can leave this place! Be with her lover! Her son, and not me!"

"Margery!" Agnes hurried over to me and just when I expected a slap she placed her cold hand on my cheek. "She did what she wanted for her happiness, and I promised her, no, I promised Edith I would take care of you in their stead."

"They sold me to you." I scoffed.

"She found love."

"She sold me."

"We had to keep the butterfly clan going, you see, we couldn't let it end so easily, be so pathetic and—"

"What's the use of a clan everyone wants to run from?" I put my hand over hers and looked up at her. "Did you, too, wish to leave?"

"But I stayed, didn't I?"

She sounded so sad, and her voice was like the wind, so scratched up. She was old. Her looks disguised it, but sometimes you felt it, you felt like she was old. She always sat down and needed control but occasionally messed up the younger girls' names and got easily frustrated.