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megarabane · 2 years

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The Butterfly Witch

[image description: a Karner blue butterfly (Lycaeides melissa samuelis) on the ground facing the camera]

The Butterfly Witch,

original short story

Words: 1.3k

Genre: Urban fantasy

Rating: Gen - Teen, for language, alcohol

Summary: Karner didn't want to spend his Halloween at the bar with Micah barely speaking to him and Axel getting drunk, but since he's out, he might as well make the most of it.

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One of the world’s greatest queries: how do you ask someone if their tattoos are moving, and if so, if they’re aware that they are?

“They aren’t moving,” Micah snapped, exasperated. “We’re in a bar, it’s dark, and she’s across the room. Leave it.”

“No—No, but—” Karner frowned against the rim of his cup, unable to look away from her. “I swear, she had one on her wrist a minute ago. And now it’s not there.”

“It’s probably part of her costume,” Axel reasoned, bumping Karner’s shoulder with his. “Everyone here is in costume. Halloween is all about sleight of hand and visual foolery, innit?”

He hummed in response, unconvinced.

Axel continued determinedly over Micah’s mocking snort. “You could always, I dunno—ask her? Weird thought.”

Karner finally tore his gaze away from the girl at the bar and set his cup down. “I guess.”

“Well, I’m going to go get a refill, and maybe talk to the kitten lookin’ lonely at the end,” Micah announced, peeling his elbows off of the bar table they currently stood around. “’Cause I’m starting to feel lonely too.” This was punctuated by a sharp look at Karner before he turned, adjusting his comically wide-brimmed straw hat, and stalked off.

Karner watched him go, attention drawn to the taper of his back and the tight belt around his waist. “Is he still mad about—?”

“Karner, you guys sucked face most of the night, and then you wouldn’t make eye contact with him for a week,” Axel interrupted, good-natured his smile fading. He raked his dark hair back under the mask resting on the crown of his head. “Ofcourse, he’s still mad. He feels like you led him on for no reason.”

Karner rubbed a hand over his face. “It wasn’t like that. I was hammered, and I felt bad about—taking advantage of him.”

“He was sober. That argument only works if he had instigated with you.”

“Regardless, I don’t like making out with someone and then not being able to remember it the next morning.” He glanced back toward the girl at the bar. “Intentional or not.”

“Christ, go talk to her,” Axel sighed, unlocking his phone with one absent hand. “I’m not going to sit here and watch you eye her up all night. I’ll hold the table, I’m just here to drink anyway.”

“I just want to know about her tattoos,” Karner explained, finishing the rest of his cocktail in one long drink, tossing the plastic cup into a nearby trash can.

“Sure, homie,” Axel agreed.

Karner hadn’t even really wanted to come out tonight anyway. Micah had barely spoken to him for two weeks, and any communication between them had been short, biting, and dismissive. He would have been happier just staying home, watching Criminal Minds reruns and pretending to study for physics.

He paused just behind the girl in the flowy black-and-orange dress, nervously smoothed his shirt out, pushed his hair back, and approached with what he hoped was visible confidence.

“Your friend is awfully upset with you,” she said before he could even speak. Attempting a smooth slide onto the barstool at her side, it caught him so off-guard that he stumbled and caught himself on the edge of the bar.

“S-Sorry?” he stammered. She was tipping a glass slowly back and forth in one hand, watching the dark drink inside spin in circles, dragging ice in its wake.

“Your friend? The farmer?” She glanced past him, down the lacquered bar. “Or is he a cowboy?”

“I— A little of both?” he managed, following her gaze. Micah had parked himself between the aforementioned kitten’s thighs, both hands on the bar on either side of her torso. Her elbows were braced on the bar behind her as she grinned at him, clearly enticed by whatever he was saying.

Like he knew, Micah looked up and their eyes met over Catgirl’s wide, fuzzy ears. The self-satisfied grin and sharp look in his eyes spoke the volumes that Karner couldn’t have begun to hear over the music. He looked away first, down at the bar.

“Must have been one hell of an argument,” she hummed, beckoning for the bartender with one sharp manicured nail.

“You wouldn’t believe,” Karner began, only to catch himself. “Wait, how did you know?”

“Another one of these, and one for my new friend,” she requested, then turned and faced him fully. Below tight black curls, her eyes were a radiant, almost glittering orange, with a mess of freckles on a tanned, smooth face. “You didn’t dress up, but your friends did. Didn’t want to come?”

“I—” Karner pursed his lips. “Sorry, let me start over. Hi, I’m Karner.”

Her eyes widened marginally, but her eyebrows shot up. “Like Karner blue.”

“What?”

“It’s a butterfly.” She smiled widely, and held out a hand. “Name’s Monarch.”

He laughed, more out of surprise than amusement. “No way.”

“Fitting, isn’t it?” Her head tipped. “But you can call me Mona.”

“Mona,” he tried, shaking her hand. It was long and narrow, but something about it felt fragile, like he would shatter the bones if he gripped too hard. It was unsettling, and he drew back quickly. “Beautiful name.”

“Only more fitting that it’s mine, then, I suppose,” she hummed. “What about yours? Family name?”

“Oh, no,” he stammered, mesmerized by…really, everything about her. “Your eyes are very pretty.”

She smirked. “Would you believe me if I told you they’re natural?”

“Dark ‘n Stormy for you, love,” the bartender said, setting two glasses down in front of them. Effectively distracted, Mona procured a card from seemingly nowhere, handing it over.

“I’ll go ahead and close out,” she decided, her touch lingering at the bartender’s wrist. She blushed bright pink and nodded, turning away with a cheery smile.

“Your tattoos,” Karner remembered suddenly, seeing a small one on the inside of her wrist. “Can I ask about them?”

“Oh, I love talking about them, of course you can!” Mona extended her arm, and the small outline of a butterfly on her wrist was simply the tail of a far larger swarm that coiled up her arm, funneling like a tornado, twisted around her bicep, and disappeared into the shoulder of her dress. “Aren’t they lovely?”

“Lovely,” he echoed, watching them intently. Up close, he felt silly for thinking they actually moved—Micah was right, they were just tattoos.

The loveliest thing about the tattoo, though, was that even though there were so many individual butterflies, each one was just that—individual. Some were just outlines: black ink in just a butterfly-esque shape, no discernable details at all. Others were colored but the black lines were smudged, like the ink had been run with water. Still others were intricately detailed, sharp colors and lines creating the image of a butterfly so lifelike that he didn’t think he’d be surprised if one of them jumped off her skin and took flight.

He was so enraptured, taking in each one’s individual details, that it took far too long for him to realize that she was watching him expectantly, orange eyes dancing across his face.

Suddenly nervous, he took a long drink through the narrow black bar straw. “Sorry, did you—?”

“Who’s your favorite?” she repeated, watching him quite intensely. It almost made his skin crawl.

“My—favorite,” he repeated, almost to himself. She turned her arm to give him a better look at the body of the swarm. He recognized a couple more common insects—the monarch was the largest, at the very top of the spiral, only the lower wings visible beneath the sleeve of her dress. He picked out a peacock butterfly, and what he assumed was a swallowtail, but the rest were all colors and shapes he’d never seen.

“This one is very pretty,” he finally decided, bringing his finger close to her skin but not quite touching, absorbed in the thought of paper-delicate butterfly wings.

“That’s a new one,” she sighed lovingly. “Charaxes smaragdalis—the western blue charaxes. That’s Akila.”

“Hm?” he queried, glancing up at her face. She tipped her head, and he saw some more tiny insects tattooed on her neck.

“I met Akila a few months ago,” she explained. “On a plane, of all places. She was going back to Egypt to visit her grandmother. We had dinner in the Newark airport.”

“You—name your tattoos after people you meet?”

“Not everyone,” Mona laughed. “Gosh, that would be so many butterflies! No, only the special ones get tattoos.”

Karner’s brow furrowed. “You…get tattoos based on the people you meet?”

“If they’re unique enough to stand out, I let the tattoos pick themselves.” That intense study was back, and he wasn’t sure if it was the liquor or the haze of the bar, but he was suddenly certain that they weren’t contacts. “Sometimes, I let the people pick the butterflies they like.”

“You’ve lost me.”

She nodded at her arm, not breaking eye contact. “Pick one of the plain ones. Any one you like.”

“Pick one?”

She didn’t answer. Karner swallowed the last of his drink, studying the delicate linework. After trailing up and down her skin a few times, he finally settled on one, and pointed it out wordlessly. He couldn’t explain why his heart was pounding against his throat, and he tried to swallow it down.

“Would you like to see a magic trick?” she asked softly, her voice a whisper that cut easily through the raucous bar. Karner found himself nodding, mesmerized.

Mona took one sharp nail, twisted her wrist, and touched the center of the butterfly. The lines moved, each butterfly rippling outward from the place she touched, quick flutters of wings, a few even closing entirely and reopening. When she lifted her finger, the butterfly he had picked had become a brilliant powder blue, wings rimmed in a band of glowing white.

His mouth fell open. “What the fuck?”

She laughed, giving herself a full-body shake. “Ah, that always gives me chills!” She presented it to him, showing him again. “That’s a Karner blue. Isn’t he pretty?”

Karner leaned forward, studying her face. “Who are you?”

She slid off her barstool, gathering the folds of her dress and shaking them out. He realized suddenly that it wasn’t just dual-colored, but the pattern was akin to a monarch butterfly. She picked up her credit card, and with a flick of her wrist, it vanished, replaced with a pen with a feather on it.

“You live in town, right?” she inquired. “Here”—and she grabbed a bar napkin and scribbled something—“is my address. You can come visit anytime—I run an apothecary. A little outdated, maybe, but if you drink tea, I grow and prepare my own oolong.” She smiled and cupped his face with one hand, pressing a chaste kiss to his other cheek. Her touch was feather-light and fleeting. “I look forward to seeing you soon, but right now, I think your friends are missing you.”

Karner stared at the empty seat in front of him for a long moment before spinning around to watch her as she left. To his bewilderment, Monarch had vanished, leaving him alone with two empty glasses and a bar napkin.

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