Everyone’s got an obsession of their own. For some, it’s a certain item, food, brand, etc. For me, it was ponies when I was younger. I was basically a horse girl, yeah. I wouldn’t really say I have anything that I’m currently obsessed with, but my favourite 2D guy would be the closest thing there is to it.
Anyway, my dad’s got an obsession with butterflies. And no, it didn’t start from years back when he was a teenager or something, and no, he didn’t buy a bunch of butterfly-themed baby stuff for me when I was born.
In short, he’s a lepidopterist. Or, a scientist who studies butterflies and moths. He obviously favours butterflies, though.
He’s got one of those jobs that I, his own child, doesn’t even know what the hell he does for a living. I’ve always just assumed he goes to work, stares and pokes at butterflies, analyses them, gets money, and goes home.
And there’s a hell lot of taxidermy butterflies all around the house. What’s weird is that they’re all dull in colour and pretty plain-looking. I wouldn’t call them ugly, but I’d say that blue or white-winged butterflies would look prettier to be hung around compared to the plain old brown or black that’s scattered around the walls.
Those kinds of butterflies aren’t even my dad’s favourite. I’d know because I asked him once.
“I don’t hang the beautiful ones up,” he said. “They’re too precious to be wasted in a glass prison.”
I nodded, understanding where he was coming from. “But what happens to the prettier ones? Don’t you have a lot of them?”
“I do. They’re for your mother,” he paused, chuckled a little, and shook his head. “They’re also for you, too.”
“Nah,” I waved my hand dismissively. “Mum can have them. Butterflies aren’t even my favourite animal anyways.”
Dad just smiled and stared at me with fondness. “You look so much like her, yet you’re so different,” he ruffled my hair, “my little butterfly.”
Of course I’m different from mum. Well, not that I’d really know. She died giving birth to me, so I never really got to know her. I do have her eyes and hair, but other than that, everyone’s told me I’m the polar opposite of her in terms of personality. She was something along the lines of a shy girl who rarely ever expressed her true emotions.
But she loved butterflies, just like dad. She wasn’t a scientist like him, though.
I’m getting a little side-tracked now, but dad has this tradition of going to mum’s grave every month and giving her a new collection of taxidermy butterflies. I used to go with him all the time, but her resting place is like four hours away by driving (she’s buried in the city she grew up in), and with school piling up, I just can’t make it all the time. I try to, of course.
But yeah, that’s where all the pretty butterflies get to go. They get to go to heaven with mum.
And it might sound like everything’s just fine and dandy, but it’s not. Dad’s always been a bit of an oddball. There’s a heavily implemented rule that I’m not allowed to go anywhere near the small study in our home. He says there’s potentially harmful scientific lab stuff things there and I really don’t care about that because I’m 14 and old enough to know what to touch and what to stay away from, but he’s got the study room padlocked with like, 5 locks in total.
And then there’s the fact that I go to a Catholic all girls school and that I’m not allowed to talk to boys my age. Or older. I’m just not allowed to talk to any guy other than dad. Even during family reunions, dad still keeps a close eye on me when I interact with my male cousins. It’s weird. I still have a burn mark on my palm from the time he poured hot water on my hand when I held another guy’s hand.
But the worst part of being basically held hostage at home when it’s not school or church hours is that the food tastes so fucking weird. It’s not even in a way where dad’s a terrible cook or anything; it just tastes NOT normal. Like it’s not food. Like it’s not supposed to be eaten but here I am, still alive after eating horseshit level meals for over a decade.
Maybe I’m getting a little angry as I type this, but I’d say I have the right to be. Dad’s also kind of a stereotypical religious misogynistic man, but he forbids me from ever going into the kitchen or cooking for myself. He locks all the knives and we don’t even have an oven.
But food used to taste okay. I think it was two years ago, when I was twelve that the food started getting shitty. I’ve checked all the ingredients and nothing’s expired, but that still doesn’t make me feel any less unnerved.
But as much as I hate dad’s cooking, I just couldn’t hate him. He’s the only direct family I have, and even with his weird ass mannerisms, I still loved him. When he isn’t cooped up in his windowless study for hours (usually after midnight), I’d always spend time with him out in the gardens. We have azaleas, chrysanthemums, peonies, and so much more.
And inside, all I looked at was dead butterflies. But outside, I could see them with breath still in their lungs.
“Why do you preserve butterflies?” I once asked dad.
It didn’t take longer than a second for him to reply. “Only the most beautiful things in this world can still remain beautiful even when dead.”
I thought he was being his weird poetic self again, so I nodded mindlessly.
“But out of all the most beautiful things on earth, only two butterflies look more majestic when dead and preserved.”
I was half-daydreaming when I heard him say that, so I turned and gawked at him like he just grew four new ankles. “What!?”
He sighed. “You’ll understand. Your mother understands.”
I said nothing in reply, and the next few minutes went on in peaceful silence. And then I broke it.
“Why do you only preserve the butterflies that die young?”
“Lita–” he said my name slowly, and there was a slight undertone to his voice that I just couldn’t quite place– “Youth is when one’s body is at its best. It’s a beauty that one can only have in their lifetime, so that’s why it should be preserved.”
The moment he finished speaking, a little butterfly landed on my shoulder. I remember my mouth going dry and my appetite dying a little. I’m no hardcore advocate for every single problem in the world, but dad’s mindset was and still is…
A little terrifying.
No, it scared me. It still does.
And he must have noticed the fear in my eyes, because he instantly laughed lightly and pulled me into a hug, his rough breath on the crown of my head and his grip on my arm a little too vice-like for comfort. “You shouldn’t take it so seriously, butterfly.”
I hate that nickname.
Because other girls get to be called ‘princess’ or ‘dove’ or ‘starlight’ or whatever the hell else, while I’m stuck with ‘butterfly.’
Not that it’s ugly or anything; I’ve read enough hopeless romantic novels to know that plenty of other girls would definitely love to be called that, but I just HATE that he calls me that when he hangs a ton of dead ones around the house.
Actually, scratch that. Not only did I hate him, but I also hated the house in general. I hated my life. I was getting sicker and sicker by the day. My body always hurt and I started to bruise really, really easily. Even in the times where dad didn’t hit me that hard, I’d still bruise, and that’s saying quite a lot since my skin’s kind of thickened throughout the years. My gums started bleeding, and I had more stomach pains than normal.
And dad didn’t do anything to help.
“You’ll feel better soon, butterfly,” he said as he checked the temperature on my forehead. “You’re not burning up, don’t be dramatic.”
“It hurrrrrtssssss,” I whined. “I want to go to a doctor.”
He clicked his tongue. “Don’t be nonsensical. You’ll feel better soon, just trust me.”
“I want to go NOW!”
“Butterfly, you’re overreacting. Just get some rest and–”
“Urgh!” I grabbed my pillow and covered my face with it like any drama queen would. I mean, he called me ‘dramatic’ in the first place. “I want to see a doctor, dad. This seriously isn’t funny. I feel like I’m dying and everything hurts.”
“Lita, you’ll be fine. Don’t overthink it,” he gave me a pat on the head and left my room.
Oh, but I did. I did overthink it, and I really didn’t need more than two brain cells to conclude that it was his horrible cooking that got me sick in the first place.
A fever? Probably from me not using blankets at night. A little cough? Maybe I’d been eating too much candy.
But bleeding gums, triple the stomach pains, and bruising? There’s not much else I can think of. Okay, well, I kind of thought that the bruising was caused by me having a stalkerish invisible ghost boyfriend, but that’s just my overactive imagination.
So I called in sick the next day. I threw up and dad let me stay home for once. He wanted to stay home too, but he just couldn’t call a day off just because his daughter was sick.
And that’s when I decided to go through all the ingredients he used for cooking. And this time, I mean ALL.
Chicken broth, rice, unsalted butter, salt, the boring old stuff.
Well, everything except one thing was boring.
Miraculously, the secret ‘ingredient’ caught the corner of my eye. But how could it not? It was a big white bottle, and even though it was stashed away in the very corner of the highest cupboard and I needed to stack two chairs on top of each other just to reach it, I found it.
It was rat poison.
And if dad knew what I was doing, I could easily imagine him saying something like “Lita, don’t jump to conclusions” or “Lita, my little butterfly, you know we had a rat problem years ago.”
But that really wouldn’t explain why the smell was so familiar to me. I’d smelled it before. I smelled it during dinner the night before, and I smelled it many, many times for around two years ever since I was twelve. I knew the putrid stench by heart, and I knew that he was poisoning me. I wasn’t sick; I was clearly being poisoned.
But for what? Because dad was a man in his forties who wanted to get rid of a really expensive mistake otherwise known as a child?
My reaction to that was simple. I threw up again. Not show-stopping, I know, but I genuinely felt sick at that very moment. I could barely look dad in the eyes that night when he got home, and even though it was difficult, I forced myself to act normal and convince him that I was feeling better, even though I might need another day at home.
So he let me stay home for another day.
And the second he left, I broke the most important rule of the house.
I took the padlock keys out of one of his many trench coats and unlocked the study room.
Really, I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s not like I was doing it out of rebellion or anything, but more of the need that I had to see what was inside. Because if he was poisoning me, then what else was he hiding?
Apparently, not only could he hide a poisoned daughter from the public for so long, but he could also hide his wife’s corpse for fourteen years.
I didn’t need more than five seconds to recognise the body as my mother’s. She lay on a bed of long-wilted roses, and her dried black hair was barely sticking to her skull.
And dad was right. Mum really was beautiful– if not for the fact that countless preserved butterflies adorned her skin.
They stuck to her like leeches. They too were dead, but it didn’t make it any better. It was the first time I ever saw my own mum, and when I did, she was covered from head to toe in dead butterflies that I realised my visual image of her beautifully resting face had only been in my head.
Because if not for the wedding ring on the rotting ring finger, I wouldn’t have known it was her. Instead of being wrapped in cloth, she was covered in butterflies. Beautiful ones, too. Vibrant blues, reds, yellows, and more. The kinds that dad deemed too pretty to be hung up in our home.
The kinds that he said he always gave to mum.
And also the kinds that he said he’d give to me. But for the meantime, he hasn’t.
Maybe I opened the study room looking for potential answers as to why he would poison me, but now I’m left even more afraid than before. Dad’s going to be home soon, and I really, really don’t want to eat. I don’t want to be poisoned, and I don’t want him to call me ‘butterfly’ ever again.
I just want to fly out of this hell house.