I Lived on Butterfly Hill Page 10

  “Wanderlust . . . romance . . .” Now, four years later, I am wondering how such exciting words eventually led my aunt to live alone in such a cold and dark part of the world, when she pulls the car off an exit and onto a small stone road full of small hills and sharp curves.

  “This is Juliette Cove! Roll down the window, Celeste,” Tía Graciela urges. I look at her like she’s crazy but do what she says. Immediately the car is filled with icy wind. “Now take a deep, deep breath!”

  I close my eyes and inhale. “Oh! Tía!” The smell of salt air, almost like home, enters my nostrils. And something new, a scent so strong and yet so sweet, it tickles my throat.

  “That’s pine, Celeste. Pine trees.”

  I turn my eyes toward the sky. Everywhere I see are enormous trees of deep green, covered in what look like shaggy fur coats speckled with snowflakes. I stick my head out the window, suddenly unaware of the cold as we emerge into a clearing and I see the ocean.

  “Your first view of the Atlantic, Celeste.”

  We drive along tall cliffs and small coves with docks where fishermen tie their boats. The small vessels rock back and forth in the gentle morning swells. “They seem to have been sleeping for years and years,” I tell my aunt. And I notice that the ships, the sea, the sky, even the snow, everything is a shade of gray. “Tía Graciela, I have never seen this gray before.”

  “Yes, it caught my attention when I first arrived too. In Valparaíso everything is so blue! But this is the gray of Maine, Celeste mía.”

  “It seems so sad, Tía.”

  “Sí, but you will get used to it, and believe me, one day you will even miss it. It is a gray full of mysteries. If you take a moment to look at it, you will see that this gray contains a light. It’s a color that promises the sun’s arrival. It’s a gray that has been part of the history of this coast and that poets and painters have fallen in love with because behind its fragile light lies another light. The lights are waiting for you to discover them too.”

  We drive the Coast Road a little farther in silence. Then at a green, snow-topped sign with the unfamiliar words “River Road,” Tía Graciela slows the car and turns onto a bumpy dirt road that seems no wider than a path through the forest. I reach my hand out the window and touch snow-dusted branches. I lick my fingers to taste the snow. And suddenly we enter another clearing in the forest, and Tía Graciela says, “Welcome home.”

  I gasp. The small gray house with green shutters is surrounded by a yard full of tall trees. “Those are oak. Wait until you see how beautiful they are in autumn,” Tía Graciela tells me excitedly as she parks the car. “And it’s all hidden under snow now, but there’s thick green grass that you will love to lie in, and small wildflowers, and I always plant a garden with flowers and vegetables too!” I listen to my aunt’s happy chatter as I step out of the car and hop up and down to try to wake my legs up after the long ride. “Careful you don’t slip on any ice!” Tía Graciela calls. She has already carried my suitcase to the front door. “I will have to teach you to walk in the winter. You’ll need snow boots, and maybe ice skates! Would you like to learn?”

  I nod, but my attention is distracted by a gobbling sound from a cluster of oaks. “Tía, what . . .”

  My aunt smiles mischievously and calls out, “Come out, you all! Don’t tell me you’re suddenly shy.” One by one a family of wild turkeys emerges.

  “Wow!” I count, “One, two, three, four . . .”

  “There are eight in all, Celeste. They live in the forest.” Tía Graciela laughs. “But really they live in this yard and on the food I sometimes leave out for them. Especially in the winter, it’s hard for them in this deep snow.” The turkeys are both strange and beautiful at the same time.

  “I love the emerald color on their feathers,” I say.

  “Yes, just wait,” my aunt says. “They will grow on you and become good friends. And look over there, by the bushes. That’s my shy one—she comes once in a while to have a snack.”

  My eyes follow my aunt’s gaze and land upon a small brown deer. The deer’s eyes are like two black moons. “Oh, how pretty!”

  “Creatures like this don’t live in cities like Valparaíso, Celeste,” my aunt whispers, “so maybe you won’t mind living here in the country for a while. Now come inside and see your home!” I take one more look at the deer and gulp back tears. I never knew it was possible to feel such sadness standing before something so beautiful.

  “Sí, Tía. Gracias.”

  A Blue Room in the North

  Tía Graciela sets my suitcase down in the hallway. “First things first! Go see your bedroom! It’s up those stairs.” The white stairs are shaped like a seashell; they swirl round and round and up and up. My room is so high up that it feels like a tree house. Then I gasp—there is a small window in the ceiling so I can see the tops of the trees that lean over the house. I’ll be able to look at the stars from my bed! And then I notice the walls. They are blue! The exact same shade of blue as my bedroom on Butterfly Hill. And my bed has a blue bedspread, and a big blue pillow with green and purple flowers embroidered on it. Oh. Oh!

  Tía Graciela appears in the doorway, my suitcase in hand. “Oh, Tía! My room is beautiful! Thank you!” I cry out.

  “I am so glad, Querida. Don’t you love the skylight? And I painted the walls when I heard you were coming. I want it to remind you of your blue room at home. I want this house on Juliette Cove to be your home, your home away from home, okay?” I nod and run to hug her.

  Then I ask her what Abuela Frida was not able to explain to me. “Tía, why did you come to Juliette Cove?”

  Tía Graciela goes over to the window and fusses with the curtains, sliding them this way and that. “Oh, one day I just knew it was time to leave Montreal.” Her cheerful voice sounds forced. “I looked at a map and saw a name that reminded me of Shakespeare’s story about love lasting beyond death . . . and so”—her voice falters—“and so . . . I decided to come here. Simple as that!”

  Tía Graciela turns from the window and smiles a smile that is too wide, too bright. It doesn’t match the shadow in her eyes. She changes the subject brusquely. “I am heating up some chicken soup for you. Why don’t you unpack, and I will come and get you when it’s ready.”

  “Okay, Tía.” I turn back to face my blue walls. “Okay,” I say again, wiping my tired, teary eyes, and add, mostly to myself, “Maybe I will just lie down on my new blue bedspread a minute and look at the sky before I unpack. . . .”

  I must have slept the whole day, because when I awake, the room is in total darkness. I turn on the little light beside my bed and see that my aunt has left a bowl of soup, some brown bread, and chamomile tea on the wooden dresser. It’s cold, but I eat it all anyway. Then I search through my bag to find my flannel pajamas, and as quick as I can, jump under the covers. The night air is cold. I wonder what time it is and if Tía Graciela is still awake. I am afraid to wander around a house I don’t yet know. I am afraid to walk in the dark and the cold. Afraid to realize that this is my first night half a world away from Butterfly Hill. I lie staring through the skylight—which I have renamed “starlight.”

  I flew today, I realize. But in a steel pelican. It seems so long ago somehow. Heavy rains have come to visit me. Drops as big as stones knock on my window. Bang, bang, bang! Startled, I get up and stand before the window and press one hand against the glass. My hand feels like it is freezing there, so I draw it back. Immediately a white light appears in its shape in the windowpane. And in the middle of that light a butterfly, copper-colored like the hills of Valparaíso, flaps her wings. I walk backward to my bed and sit in stunned silence. I don’t even want to blink. I can’t take my eyes away from the butterfly. A light that looks like ocean water fills my bedroom. Suddenly I feel a soft wing brush my forehead. It’s a push so gentle, yet I tumble down onto the covers, and my eyes close the moment my head touches the pillow. I sleep. And in my sleep I hear a voice that is like water, and also like light. “This is
your blue room on Juliette Cove, where everything is so quiet and still that the only sound and movement is the trembling of your heart. Let your heart speak to me often. I am always listening.”

  Juliette Cove, Maine

  I wake up in the morning unsure of where I am until I peek out the frosty window. Everything is blanketed with snow, and more is falling; the sky seems filled with white feathers. All of a sudden I feel utterly alone.

  I put on my socks and creep down the winding stairs just as Tía Graciela comes in the front door, shaking white from her hair and shoulders. When she takes off her big coat, I notice how very thin my aunt has grown. Her waist curves like a violin. Then she sees me at the bottom of the stairs and smiles like my mother. “Good morning! The snow has come to welcome you, Celeste!”

  I follow her to the kitchen with its old wallpaper with yellow flowers and a small white table and two chairs. I sit in one of them and watch my aunt float about the kitchen. “Is toast okay?” she asks.

  “Of course!” I smile, knowing full well that toast is one of the only things my Tía Graciela can make!

  “Today is a special day, so I will try to prepare some scrambled eggs, too.”

  Tía Graciela chatters excitedly about the red foxes, along with the deer and wild turkeys, who live in the forest surrounding the house. Poor Tía. It must have been so long since she has had someone to talk to, I think. After breakfast she takes me on a tour of Juliette Cove. Tía Graciela’s road lets out onto the Coast Road, which follows the rocky beach. The Atlantic Ocean is gray, the same color of the big overcoats worn by the few residents we see walking down Washington Street, which is where the Coast Road eventually leads.

  “This is our main street!” Tía Graciela laughs. “Very different from Valparaíso, no?”

  I look out the car window at a convenience store, a pharmacy, and an Italian restaurant called Sal’s Pizza. “They have great hamburger pizzas, Celeste,” Tía Graciela says. We pass the businesses quickly and drive down Washington Street for as long as it takes me to practice the alphabet twice in English, and arrive at another rocky beach. “This is called Saints’ Harbor. I think Delfina would like that name, don’t you?”

  “Oh!” I cry out. “A lighthouse! It looks just like the one I watch from the roof.”

  How strange that this lighthouse could look almost exactly like the one in Valparaíso Harbor, when they are so far apart—one so north, the other so south.

  Tía Graciela seems to hear my thoughts. “There are lighthouses all over the world, Celeste,” she says. “And harbors where sailors find safety and refuge.”

  I think I know what she is trying to tell me. “Then . . . maybe, Tía . . . maybe there are other things here that are also at home. And maybe I can find those things . . . and try . . . to be happy.”

  I Call Them Friends

  In Valparaíso, Tía Graciela had many different jobs. She sometimes was an actress in the community theater, and she sometimes tutored students in Spanish at the university. She even worked as a receptionist in my parents’ clinic for a while. But here on Juliette Cove she reads tarot cards for a living. I never even knew she could read the cards!

  “I kept the tarot a secret from Mamá,” my aunt confides in me, “because I was going through my rebellious teenage years. You know the magician at Café Iris, of course?” I nod, intrigued. “Well, he and I were classmates in high school. He taught me just for fun. I never knew just how much it would come in handy!” Tía Graciela’s eyes twinkle with mischief. “Good times or bad, I can always find someone with a question about when they will strike it big! Or”—she winks at me—“about their love lives!”

  An incredible idea comes to me, and I blurt out, “Tía! Can you use the tarot to tell me what’s happening to Mamá and Papá?!”

  “Oh, Celeste.” She puts her hands on my shoulders and looks deep into my eyes. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. Something El Mago taught me is that magic exists, but it is we who create it.” She laughs ruefully. “How I wish I could predict the future!”

  “Then how do you . . . ? But your clients . . . ,” I trail off, confused.

  “The cards, like the stars, serve as guides for the imagination. It’s like a picture book. I just describe what I see. It isn’t hard to figure out what people need to hear. I see every word light up in their eyes each time I turn over a card.”

  I remain quiet, unsure of how I feel about everything she’s told me. I look around Tía Graciela’s bedroom. Every flat surface—the bureau, the windowsill, the night table—is covered with conch shells.

  “I began collecting them as a girl in Valparaíso and never stopped.” She looks up toward the three pink shells on the doorframe as her head pops from beneath the folds of her long violet dress—the one she wears when she visits clients. I stifle a laugh as she arranges a turban, also violet, on her head. “Can you help me, Querida?” She points to the red curls sticking out in the back. I tuck them in one by one as she now motions toward her dresser. “I keep the cards in that little bag. Isn’t it pretty? It’s Chinese silk, and the color reminds me of the sky over Butterfly Hill.” Tía Graciela is talking a mile a minute. She must have had too many cafés con leche today . . . or maybe she is just excited to see her clients.

  “But why do you have to go out to see them? Isn’t all that driving tiring?” I ask her, tucking the last tendril beneath her turban. Ever since I can remember, I have walked or rode a cable car to wherever I needed to go, with the exception of the occasional outing in Don Alejandro’s taxi. I am still not used to the idea of driving everywhere. To me, Tía Graciela’s station wagon is a stuffy, stifling milk carton on wheels.

  “It’s good for me to get out, Celeste.” She sighs. “I have no true friends here, you know. Well, perhaps the mailman—he does visit every day but Sunday!” She laughs at her own joke. Then her voice turns serious.

  “Celeste, many of the people whose homes I visit are old. They are old and they live alone. We drink tea and talk, and I don’t need the cards to figure out that I am the first person who has listened to them in a long time.”

  “Everyone likes to tell their stories,” I say, remembering everything I heard under the kitchen table on Butterfly Hill.

  “Yes, you would know!” Her face brightens again. “I remember what a snoop you were as a little girl! And still are, most likely!” Tía Graciela takes the blue pouch from the dresser and turns to me. “I’ll be back in a few hours, Querida! Hopefully you can find something in the fridge that will do for lunch!”

  I follow her to the front door and throw her winter coat over her shoulders before she walks out without it . . . which she seems to do a great deal too much in this cold weather. “Good luck with your clients!” I tell her.

  “¡Gracias!” She opens the door, and the winter wind rushes in. “But I don’t call them clients, Celeste! I call them friends.”

  As I bolt the door behind her, I wonder if she accepts eggs for payment like my parents. Then I remember that I’m in America now.

  Nostalgia

  The Juliette Cove firemen know Tía Graciela well. The first time I see them running into the house, all dressed in red, they seem to me like wild balls of fire, and I actually forget how cold I was. You see, I am learning that Tía Graciela’s house always smells of fresh coffee and toast, except on the unlucky mornings when it smells like burned toast. My aunt gets distracted easily, and in the mornings she has a habit of forgetting the four slices of wheat bread in the toaster as she stirs sugar into her coffee and stares at the swirls of milk like seafoam and tries to see the future. Sometimes the toast turns so black that smoke fills the house, setting off the scary scream of the fire alarm and forcing us to run into the icy Maine air, wrapped only in our bathrobes.

  My aunt is moodier than I remember her and is often looking out the window toward the horizon. In the silence of the afternoons I press my ear against the window’s cold glass and almost hear the trees sigh as their branches sway.

 
When I tell her this, she says, “All winter they stand strong against the wind and bear the weight of the snow.”

  I answer how I think Abuela Frida would. “Then they must have something to teach us. . . . Is that why I find you at the window so often?”

  My aunt doesn’t answer my question and instead tells me, “Celeste, show me precisely how to put my ear against the window so that I can hear the trees sigh too.”

  “I’ll bring you something happier!” I say, and scurry upstairs. I return with the pearly conch shell Nana Delfina gave me. “Listen!” I urge my aunt. Tía Graciela puts the shell to her ear.

  “The Pacific!” she gasps. Her face brightens, and her head sways ever so slightly to the rhythms she hears inside. She looks so happy that for that moment I forget my own homesickness and say, “You keep it, Tía! You’ve been away from Valparaíso so much longer.” Then I quickly leave her alone before I change my mind.

  Sometimes I hear Tía Graciela sing to herself. Other times I hear her crying, not over a pot of potatoes but into her own hands. I run to her room. “What’s wrong? Can I help?” And one day I hesitantly ask her, “Do you miss Guillermo?”

  But Tía Graciela never talks about the boyfriend she followed all the way from Valparaíso to Montreal, Canada. And Abuela Frida warned me that she wouldn’t. “Oh, little one, it is just the nostalgia.” Tía Graciela sniffs into a tissue. “If I let my tears flow, they will finally dry up.” I kiss my aunt on the cheek and taste a tear so salty, it’s as if it held the entire sea.

  I return to my own room and sit on the bed and think. Nostalgia. I never liked the sound of that word, and now I know what it means because I have it too—it’s missing someone so much that it becomes a part of you, a constant ache. It’s getting through another day—waking up, eating breakfast, getting dressed, even taking a walk—while all you think about is the past. I have nostalgia for my parents, my grandmother, and Delfina, who must still be sweeping the doorways with rose water to scare bad spirits away from the house. I miss Cristóbal Williams, too. I hope he is managing to stay awake and keep his magic pendulum hidden! I wonder if others are asking for me, like Marisol and Gloria. And have they found out where Lucila is? Is she hiding like my parents? Or is she safe in some faraway country like I am?