THE CURE FOR ANYTHING

THE CURE FOR ANYTHING
by Nik Sylvan

You’d think a butterfly that could drain your sorrows would be big and flashy, but the insect Sam showed me in her greenhouse was small and brown. I’d have thought it was a moth if she hadn’t told me otherwise.

She lifted one off a huge leaf on her finger—it was barely the length of the space between two of her knuckles, and Sam was a small woman. The butterfly walked back and forth along the length of her finger, touching it gently with its tiny proboscis, as though searching for a meal.

“Where did you get it?” I asked, and she gestured at the big-leafed plant.

“I ordered a new variety of Monstera,” she said. “I couldn’t resist the pattern on the leaves.” The large, very green, deeply split leaves did have interesting markings in yellow and burnt orange-brown; they were surprisingly subtle against the background colour, but looked like calligraphy, written in an undeciphered script. Looking closer, I saw that there were several of the small butterflies on the plant, their brown wings blending in with the leaf markings.

“There were eggs on it,” Sam said. “I was going to destroy them—I mean, who knows what kind of horrible plague they could end up to be.”

I reached out to touch the tiny bug on her finger, and it crawled over to mine, and seemed to look at me with its faceted eyes for a moment.

“But you decided to hatch them instead?” I’m sure she could hear the dubious tone in my voice; I didn’t try to hide it. We live in a place where life takes hold easily. It’s lush and green, and invasives seem to find it perfectly suited to population explosions. We’ve been trying to keep the spread of Scotch broom under control for decades—nobody even pretended anymore that it could be eradicated.

She shrugged and took the butterfly back, letting it crawl onto its leaf again. As she did, another flew up and landed in her hair. “I was careful,” she said. “I hatched them in a mesh cage, and I only opened it to feed them. Once a day.”

The butterfly in her hair crawled onto her forehead, and she lifted it off gently and put it back onto its plant.

“And anyway, they don’t go far from the Monstera,” she said.

“So they’re food-plant specific?” Another butterfly left the plant to flutter around my face.

“Very,” she said, “Only…”

“Only?” I waved my hand gently in front of my face, trying to discourage the little brown creature from landing. Sam just watched, with a slight smile twitching the corner of her mouth.

“Only they seem to like landing on people, too.”

“Why? Do we taste good?”

“Our tears do, apparently.”

I looked at her, eyebrows raised, and waited for her to explain. The butterfly took that moment of my distraction, when I let my hand drop back to my side, to land on my cheek. I moved to lift it off, and Sam stopped me.

“Wait,” she said. “This is the best part.”

I twitched one eyebrow higher, and she let the smile spread to her lips.

“Just wait,” she said. “It’s not going to hurt you.”

So I stood, and endured the tickle of a small insect walking all over my face, prodding almost imperceptibly with its mouthparts. It paused at my lips, but eventually decided my saliva wasn’t what it was looking for, and headed for my left nostril.

“I am not digging a bug out of nose, Sam,” I said.

“Just wait, Emily,” she said, mocking my mild indignation perfectly. She was good at that, imitating me.

After what seemed like forever but was probably only a minute or two, the butterfly found the corner of my left eye.

“It works better if you’re actually crying,” Sam said. I refrained from asking what worked better, because I knew she wouldn’t tell me anything until I’d experienced whatever it was she was waiting for.

I felt the flutter of the butterfly at the corner of my eye, and I felt a tiny sting as its delicate probe touched my tear duct, and then I felt… something else. The irritation that had begun to build up at Sam’s mysteriousness suddenly vanished. The anxiety I had been ignoring about an upcoming ultrasound went away. And the background sorrow I continued to feel after the death of my wife in a car crash eased a little.

Then Sam lifted the butterfly away.

I found myself lifting my hand to stop her, to keep the insect there, but I willed myself still.

“What was that?” I said.

“They drink tears,” Sam answered, “and they cure sorrow.”

+++

After carefully inspecting each other in the airlock-style greenhouse entry, to make sure we didn’t have any lepidopteran hitchhikers, Sam and I repaired to her back porch, to sip wine and think about the implications of a tiny bug that could take your sorrows away.

I watched Sam swirl the deep red wine in her glass—she made it herself, from the grapes we could see ripening just on the other side of the row of greenhouses. She looked thoughtful, but that was not unusual for Sam. She wore her emotions on her face, plain for all to see, and the most common were mischief, joy, and thoughtfulness.

There was a time, before I met my wife, when I—when everyone we knew, really—assumed Sam and I would end up together. We got along well, and had a lot of the same interests, never mind that Sam was always determined to live in the country and grow her own food, while I was happier in the city, keeping my plant-growing to things that could grow indoors. We did share a love for propagating and cross-breeding exotic houseplants, which is what kept us visiting back and forth, long after we’d graduated college and gone our separate ways.

“You could raise and sell them,” I said. “I bet you’d make enough to pay off the farm in no time.”

“I could, I guess,” she said. “Though I’d probably be branded as the latest woo-peddling new-age fraud.”

“I could take a few to work with me, see if I can isolate what causes the effect, then we could sell that.”

“And you’d get a nice, career-defing scientific paper out of it,” she said. She kept her gaze focussed on her wine.

“You don’t want me to experiment on them,” I said.

“They might be just bugs, but they are living creatures.”

“You raise and slaughter your own chickens.”

That got me a direct look. “We’ve discussed this at great length.” And we had. Sam gave her livestock a good, happy life, and a quick, clean death. She used every useable part of every animal she killed. I, on the other hand, while not opposed to eating meat, tended to eat only a little, and very much didn’t want to know where it came from.

And that was why we never got together, and was almost why we stopped being friends. We, by which I mostly mean I, had learned to not bring the topic of killing animals up at all. We were both much happier agreeing to disagree.

“I don’t torture my animals,” she said, then turned back to her wine. I wished I hadn’t brought the topic up in the first place. I should really have known better.

“Okay,” I said. “No experiments. What about testing dead ones?”

“I tried poking my eye with a dead butterfly,” she said. “Nothing happened.”

We passed into silence then, and sipped our wine, watching the sun drift closer to the surrounding treetops.

Finally, Sam straightened. “I’ve got to get the evening chores done.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I should get on my way.”

We hugged and she held on just a little longer than I wanted to, like she was reluctant to let me go. Like she always did. I headed towards my car.

“Emily?”

“Yeah?”

“Come back next weekend. I’ll show what they can really do.”

I didn’t ask what that might be, just nodded and headed out.

+++

This time, when Sam ushered me through the entry and into her exotic-plant greenhouse, there was a space cleared at on end of the long building. Next to the pond and its waterfall feature—the habitat of tropical water lilies and orchids—she had moved aside the usual clutter of pots and spread out a thick blanket over the earthen floor.

The calligraphy-marked Monstera was close by, as were a few other split-leaved giants, all of them host to what looked like a lot more butterflies than had been here last week.

I gestured at the plants. “Did you find some other host plants for them?”

Sam looked chagrined. “It turns out they like every Monstera I’ve moved anywhere close to them. Even a few that weren’t close. So I’ve put them all in a group, to keep the butterflies together.

“What happened to hatching them in screen cages?” I could see several insects busy laying eggs at the base of some of the leaves, and there were even some caterpillars—as brown and unassuming as the adults—nibbling along a leaf edge. Some of the other varieties of Monstera even seemed to be acquiring the calligraphy-like markings of the original host plant.

“They lay eggs faster than I can collect them,” she said. “But a lot of them don’t hatch. And the caterpillars don’t eat much.”

“Did you notice the leaves?” I said, pointing to a plant that had, I was fairly sure, originally had solid deep-green foliage. It was now traced by flowing, looping yellow and burnt-orange lines. I lifted a leaf and found a couple of brown caterpillars industriously chewing away at the underside of the leaf, drawing elegant calligraphy as they went.

“I’m going to have to contain them properly,” Sam said. “I know.” Her concern was plain on her face, but so was an eagerness I’d never seen her wear before.

“Well, you know what you’re doing,” I said, but I wasn’t so sure she did.

“Anyway, lie down.” Sam gestured at the blankets. I hesitated, but then I remember the wonderful feeling of my worries easing away from last time, when the butterfly had merely tasted the edge of my eye. I was curious, and lately I keep thinking I’d seen Chloe, my dead wife, everywhere. She’d been gone a year—more than a year, now—and it still felt like a knife in the gut every time I thought I saw her and then remembered it couldn’t be her, and would never be her again.

So I lay on the blanket, flat on my back, and let Sam tuck a cushion behind my head. Her hand lingered on my hair a moment, smoothing a stray lock out of the way. Then she reached over to one of the plants and plucked a butterfly off, and placed it next to my right eye, then again for my left. Their little feet tickled on my cheeks as they oriented themselves, and then they found my tear ducts and softly poked at them, making my eyes sting like they do right before tears come.

+++

I felt my discomfort at lying on the hard ground ease until I could not have felt more comfortable lying on a princess-and-the-pea heap of feather mattresses. My anxiety eased. I was still waiting for that ultrasound, which would tell me if I need to have my thyroid removed. But now it didn’t matter. Whatever would be, would be.

Then, horribly, I thought of Chloe. I remembered meeting her, when I literally ran into her on my first and only time trying roller-skates. I remembered our brief, wonderful years together, and it hurt.

“Sam,” I said, intending to tell her to take to insects away. I hurt enough already; I didn’t need more.

She took my hand, stroked the backs of my fingers. “Just wait,” she said.

“I…” the tears came then in a rush, and almost as quickly were sucked away, and with them, the pain.

First, the terrible memories, the details of the car crash, the empty feeling of her not being there, the surreal and sharp details of every fight we’d ever had, seeped away into nothing. For a long time—or what felt like a long time—I lay basking in only good memories, happy memories, joy and delight and quiet contentment.

Then I think I fell asleep and everything went away. There was nothingness and it was perfect. I could imagine existing in that blankness forever and never wanting anything or hurting any more.

When I came to, Sam had thrown a fine net over the Monstera plants and there were no longer butterflies sipping at my tears. There were no longer tears, or anything to cause tears. There didn’t seem to exist anything that might have caused sorrow in the first place.

I walked to my car in a sort of daze.

“Next week?” said Sam.

“Sure,” I said.

“Another session or two and you’ll be cured.” She smiled. “You’ll have forgotten all the sad things. Like me. No more fear about losing the farm. No more disappointment,” she said. “Just each day as a new possibility to do something wonderful.”

I didn’t ask what it was I was supposed to be cured of. I didn’t even remember until I was home and undressing for bed and I saw the photo of Chloe and me on our wedding day.

That time, it was worse than a stab in the gut.

+++

I got to Sam’s the next week much earlier than usual, so I wasn’t surprised that she didn’t come out to meet me when I pulled in. The sun was high and bright overhead, glinting off the glass of the greenhouses—no plastic for Sam if she could avoid it.

For a moment I just sat in my car, wondering which part of the farm I’d find Sam on, and what I’d be interrupting. What I really wanted was to head straight for the houseplant greenhouse, to pluck a butterfly and apply it to the corner of my eye, and let it drain away my fears and anxieties and sorrows. All week I had tried not to think about Chloe, and all week I couldn’t help it.

Mostly, the grief was dulled compared to what it had been before last week’s butterfly session, but every now and then it broke through, sharper than ever, and left me gasping for breath like I did when I’d first got the news that her car had been t-boned by a semi and she was never coming home. That her body was so mangled they used dental records to verify her identity, and I would never even be able to look at her face again.

If Sam was right, a few more times letting her nondescript butterflies drink my tears, and even the dullest of grief would be gone. Would it mean losing my memory of Chloe entirely? If it did, I thought in the worst moments of pain, I didn’t care. At least I wouldn’t hurt anymore.

So I made myself get slowly out of the car, and head towards the big farmhouse instead of the row of greenhouses. I wasn’t surprised to get no answer to my knock, but I was a little concerned when I wandered all over the five-acre property hollering Sam’s name a got only a bleat from a goat and a moo from a cow in reply.

She had probably gone into town for supplies, I told myself. After all, I wasn’t supposed to be here until after supper. But then I noticed that the cow, which had followed my along the fence, continuing to moo the whole time, had a heavy, distended udder. Was it supposed to be so big? Did cow udders normally look like they were about to burst? There was a little bit of milk dripping from one teat, and although I know almost nothing about dairy cattle, I was pretty sure this cow had not been milked in some time.

I looked over towards the greenhouses. I’d tromped all over the little farm, except there. I didn’t want to encourage my fantasy of using the butterflies without Sam. She was kind and forgiving, but very, very particular about her plants and her animals. And her privacy.

I started at the far end of the row of greenhouses, where Sam sprouted seeds in the early spring. The shelves were empty save for a few flats of tomatoes that were already heavy with red fruit. I could see she wasn’t there.

The other greenhouses were fuller—rows and rows of plants that grew better in higher heat or more constant humidity than our natural environment could offer. Everything looked lush and healthy are cared for. And each building was empty of human occupants.

When I reached the last greenhouse, the one closest to the farmhouse, I paused at the entry. It was the only one that had the air-lock style entrance, because it was here that Sam grew things from exotic locations, things that might bring in foreign blights or pests. I wanted to burst in, to make sure Sam wasn’t here and then…

And then what? Leave and wait for her on her porch, as I should, or settle down with the butterflies and let them take my sorrow, as I wanted to? As I had wanted to since I got home last weekend and saw that photograph of my dead and lost wife.

I took a deep gulp of air and opened the first door. As I shut it behind me, I let my breath out slowly. I reached for the other door and quickly slipped inside without pausing, hoping I was less likely to let anything out that way, though last I had seen, the butterflies were contained under fine mesh on their host plants and didn’t seem inclined to venture far.

“Sam?” I call out as I turned and then my breath froze in my lungs. All around me, on every plant of every species and variety, there were loopy, elegant swirls of calligraphic-looking markings in yellow and burnt orange. And on every plant crawled industrious inconspicuous-looking brown caterpillars. The air swirled with small earth-toned wings.

“Sam?” I stepped farther into the greenhouse. My anticipation, my longing to be relieved of grief, had mutated into something else. I still craved it, but now it felt like the way I craved coffee in the morning, or the way I imagined a drug addict craves a fix. And, while I wasn’t afraid, exactly, I was concerned. It looked like Sam was wrong about the Monstera being the only host plant for this butterfly. Had they mutated, with every new generation more tolerating of other food sources. First other varieties of Monstera, and then perhaps an exotic palm, or a Dracaena, or a Pilea. Was that even possible?

“Sam?” I took another step in. I couldn’t see from the door to even the nearest wall of the greenhouse, so thick and lush was the vegetation. The mass of caterpillars seemed only to mark the leaves with calligraphy, rather than denude the foliage the way an infestation of tent caterpillars might.

I thought I heard something, a rustle of leaves, perhaps a faint voice. I tried to follow the sound but it seemed to come from every direction, and I found only more marked leaves, more brown caterpillars, more little dark butterflies.

The sun stabbed in through the roof, between the leaves, and dazzled my eyes as I made my way to the far end of the greenhouse. No Sam. I followed the back wall and headed the other way. The faint finally sound got louder and I realized now what it was. Not a movement or a voice, not Sam. It was the waterfall flowing into the pond, trickling over its mossy bed and around its orchids to slip in between thick leaves and bright fuchsia blooms of the Amazonian water lily. Even they were marked with caterpillar writing, and the little furry insects didn’t seem to mind being underwater to chew on the delicate lower surface of the leaves.

And then I found Sam.

The thick hand-woven blanket that had been there last week was still there, though even more crowded around with potted plants. The mesh that had covered the Monstera was there, too, but pulled away and bunched up between two pots. And lying on the blanket was Sam. She was covered in a layer of brown wings, all gently fanning the air, and flashing their unexpectedly bright orange undersides.

She wasn’t moving.

I stepped closer and gently brushed the butterflies away from her face. It was a face I had loved, once. A face I thought I might wake up to every morning, before I met Chloe. A face that even just last week held traces of the love she once felt for me. And it was a face now as desiccated and shrunken as a Peruvian mummy.

For a long moment, I just stared, then the breath I had been holding rushed out all at once in a scream. I felt wings brush my cheek and I lurched to my feet and ran. And ran. And ran.

I fetched up against the hot, unyielding metal of my car and had to stop. I gasped in air, and again, and again until I could think.

“Oh, shit,” I said. “Oh fuck, Sam.” And then my thoughts pointed out to me something I hadn’t noticed in my flight.

“Oh, crap.” I had burst out through the airlock doors of the greenhouse with no thought except getting away. And I hadn’t closed them behind me.

I turned and looked and at first thought I’d got lucky. I headed back to close the doors, to hopefully contain the butterflies until… Until I could convince someone they were too dangerous to let out, even if there was a dead woman in there?

As I reached for the outer door, I saw it, a little brown butterfly on the edge of one glass panel. I grabbed at, thrust it back inside and slammed the door. I let myself relax a moment, then straightened. I would go inside and use Sam’s phone to call the police. And the Department of Wildlife. Or somebody.

“Sam,” I whispered. What had she been so hurt by that she kept resorting to her butterflies instead of destroying them when she realized they were out of control? She must have known. And she must have had some secret pain, some secret longing, something that didn’t show on her face the way every other emotion showed. Something she didn’t share with me, even as I shared my grief over losing Chloe with her over wine every Saturday afternoon.

And then I felt the tickle of bug legs against my face, and when I turned back to the greenhouse I saw that slamming the door hadn’t closed it; it had only bounced it off the doorframe and flung it even wider open. The butterflies were escaping in a flutter of brown.

I felt the tiny sting of a proboscis poked into the corner of my eye and the worry eased. Then the sorrow hit and I dropped to my knees.

“Sam,” I whispered. “Chloe.” It hurt. Another small sting at my other eye, and the hurt was gone. I watched a steady fluttering stream of little brown butterflies leave the greenhouse and flit off into the fields. I heard the goat bleat, and then fall quiet, the frantic mooing of the cow increase then ease away to nothing.

I guess the butterflies can take pain from animals, too, I thought. And more soft wings brushed my face and the grass I didn’t remember lying down in felt so comfortable. And then nothingness came and this time I didn’t wake up from it. It just went on and on in its comforting blankness until even that was gone, and so was I.

Fiction © Copyright Nik Sylvan
Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

Nik Sylvan has been writing since she could make letters with a pencil, and made a living for many years as a freelance writer of non-fiction about video games, writing, and books. She has gone back to school too many times, studying archaeology, folklore, writing, and visual art. She writes fiction under several pen names and also does printmaking, bookbinding, and other art. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram at @anagramforink.