10
2/50: MOTHS
THE FORTY-NINTH fear on Esther Solar’s semi-definitive list of worst nightmares was moths, thanks to the repeated watching of The Mothman Prophecies and The Silence of the Lambs, and one particularly traumatic run-in with a common house moth when she was in middle school. (The insect flew into her mouth.)
Esther sat on her front porch in the rain, elbows resting on her knees, dressed as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Her semi-definitive list of worst nightmares was folded open next to her. 49. Moths and/also Mothmen was circled.
Jonah pulled up on his moped and ran through the rain with his hands over his head. Esther was relieved to see that he had not, in fact, dressed as the Mothman, which was much appreciated.
“Damn, Jackie O,” he said when he saw her. “Not enough people can pull off white gloves these days.” Then he sat next to her, not so close that he was touching her, but close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating off him as his skin dried his damp clothes. He smelled intensely of himself and was, like her, dressed for another decade, with orange corduroy pants and a pale blue silk shirt with ruffles, his hair a thicket atop his head.
“Pretty sure I told you I was reupholstering a couch today,” she said, tapping her phone. Esther had sent the message when she woke up that morning in a panic that she would have to see him again. It seemed worth a shot. After he hadn’t replied, she’d resigned herself to the fact that Jonah Smallwood was a parasite who could not easily be shaken off, and had come to sit on the porch to wait for him in an ever-increasing state of dismay.
“Which is why I brought this,” he said, unzipping his backpack and spinning a staple gun around his fingers.
“Are you ever going to let me skip a fear?”
“Nope.”
“What excuse can I try next week?”
“You have to graffiti public property.”
“That’s not fair. You know I won’t do that.”
Jonah grinned. “Yeah, that’s the point.”
Cut to: A shot of Jonah and Esther from behind, now inside her house, kneeling in front of a ratty sofa. He turned to her, in profile, and said, “Did you really go out and buy a couch to reupholster just so you wouldn’t have to face your fear of moths?”
Esther turned to him. Their faces were very close together. “I found it on the street and dragged it two blocks to my house, but yes.”
“That’s nasty. This couch is definitely some kind of crime scene.”
“Which is why we have to reupholster it,” she said, holding up the empty staple gun and clicking it twice.
Three and a half hours later, Jonah, Eugene, and Esther were sitting on the reupholstered couch. It was hideous, a lumpy, yellow, floral monstrosity. They were not very good upholsterers. Or perhaps they were excellent upholsterers, but the couch was simply beyond redemption.
Either way, the situation wasn’t good, couch-wise. Fleayoncé didn’t seem to mind too much, though. She sat on Jonah’s shoulder, purring like an idling lawnmower while he played absentmindedly with her ears. A long tentacle of drool hung from one side of her mouth.
They were watching The Mothman Prophecies and passing a bowl of popcorn among them.
“Where did this hideous couch come from?” Eugene asked between mouthfuls of popcorn. Esther and Jonah both shrugged without looking away from the screen. It was up to the part where that one dude, Gordon, gets a prophecy from his sink that ninety-nine will die. Jonah paused the movie.
“You want me to believe you’re scared of some talking sink?” he said.
“That sink, with the help of moths, predicted the murder of ninety-nine people,” Esther said.
“Psychic sinks are not to be trifled with,” Eugene added.
“Punk ass sink needs to sit down and reevaluate its life choices. C’mon. Enough procrastinating. Let’s go find some moths.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to watch The Silence of the Lambs first?” Esther asked hopefully.
“Nah.”
“Fine. But if my sink starts making prophecies, you’ll be the first to hear about it.”
“Eugene, man, do you wanna come with?” Jonah said.
“Where are you going?”
Jonah whispered something in his ear. Eugene shivered. “God. No.”
That’s how she knew it was going to be bad.
• • •
THEY ARRIVED at the butterfly sanctuary midafternoon. It was a great glass structure, like a greenhouse only larger, and so packed with plants it looked like part of the set from Jurassic World. There was an admission fee, but Jonah said, “Yeah, I didn’t think so.” Instead they found a side door, and much to the protest of Esther’s wildly beating heart, snuck in without paying.
“Let the record state that I am deeply dismayed at this blatant disregard for the rules,” she said, but Jonah shushed her as he strapped the GoPro to his forehead.
“Would you shut up for two seconds and look at where you are?”
So she did shut up. And she did look at where she was.
Arching over them was a tall glass ceiling, hundreds and hundreds of shards held up by a white frame. There was a gazebo, a pond, a small bridge crossing over a stream, an unsettlingly large moth sculpture, thickets of ferns and flowers, and a grassy area where children were playing. And there were butterflies everywhere. Mostly orange ones—monarchs, she vaguely remembered them being called from elementary school—that were so abundant they made the trees appear as if fall was already here.
Jonah did his typical Jonah schtick; he led her around the sanctuary and narrated every species of butterfly they saw in a not unreasonable impersonation of David Attenborough, and Esther laughed.
Until they got to the moths.
The moths, antisocial assholes that they were, had their own small section at the back of the sanctuary, for two reasons:
- Moths were evil and therefore probably plotting the downfall of all the more attractive butterflies, and thus needed to be kept contained like any villain worth their salt.
- Nobody went to a butterfly sanctuary to see moths, and the moths knew it, which had only contributed to their general evilness.
It was a vicious cycle, really. The hate only led to more hate, but she couldn’t help it. Moths were nasty.
They ventured into moth territory and already she was drawing deeper breaths, because no insect had a right to be that chunky. They were huge and hairy and had these powerful-looking legs and furry antennas. There were all different species of all different sizes. There were even some of the death’s-head moths, the ones with the little skulls on their backs, which was sufficient enough evidence for her that moths were portents of doom and shouldn’t be messed with.
Esther did her best to move as little as possible. Jonah, on the other hand, was fascinated.
A furry white moth flitted over to land on his hand, this beast of a thing with black button eyes. Jonah stroked it. Straight up ran his finger down its back, like it was a miniature puppy. “Kinda looks like a Pokémon,” he said, holding it at eye level to inspect it closer. “Bring me the eagles,” he whispered. “Show me the meaning of haste!” Then he threw it up into the air and it flittered away to go and do moth pastimes. Like crawling into the mouths of corpses and terrorizing small towns.
“Tolkien knew a lot of stuff, but he knew nothing about the dark souls of moths. No way a moth would’ve helped Gandalf,” Esther said. “Least believable part of Middle-earth.”
“Your turn,” Jonah said, pointing to the largest moth in the enclosure, a brown monstrosity with wing patterns that would have made a nice wall hanging for Urban Outfitters.
“I am not touching that thing.”
“That’s what she said.”
“Gross.”
“C’mon, they aren’t skittish. Not like it’s gonna get up in your face or anything. It’s the butterflies you gotta watch out for.”
“I’ll do it on one condition.”
“Okay.”
“Tell me how you got into my locker every day.”
“A magician never reveals his secrets.”
“Good thing you’re a pickpocket and not a magician then.”
Jonah smiled as the big moth crawled onto his hand, flapped its big wings a few times, and then settled there. “Hephzibah gave me the combos to the locks and helped me with the tape.”
“That weasel. And the magnets?”
“Eugene makes a good double agent.”
“I’m surrounded by traitors.”
Jonah held out the moth to her. “They both think you facing your fears is a really good idea.”
“Hypocrites!” she shouted. Then she put one hand over her mouth to: a) stop herself from vomiting, b) stop herself from hyperventilating, and c) stop herself from screaming. “Oh my god,” she said through her fingers. “It’s so big.”
“That’s also what she said.”
“Shut up or I’ll punch you again.”
“Please, spare me the pain.” Like with the last moth, Jonah ran his finger down this one’s back. As she looked into its big beady eyes, Esther supposed that the insect didn’t really seem that evil.
“Poor moths get the real short end of the stick,” Jonah said. “Everyone’s always talking about butterflies and their effect. What about moths? What happens if they flap their wings? All moths get is some Richard Gere movie.”
He held the insect out to Esther again, and she let it amble onto her hand; to its credit, it didn’t do anything for the next few minutes except chill there. When she finally admitted that okay, maybe moths weren’t that bad, maybe they were kind of cute, Jonah coaxed it back onto his fingers and set it back on a tree branch.
“Split?” said Jonah.
“The torture’s over already?” she asked. “Hell yeah.”
As they headed toward the exit in the main butterfly area, a kid tripped and slammed into the base of a tree, which sent the monarchs up in a storm of orange. The whole greenhouse seemed to take to the air, as if gravity had been momentarily suspended. All the adults in the general vicinity ran to the aid of the screaming (and therefore clearly alive) child, as Esther and Jonah turned in slow circles, staring up through the growing firestorm. She put her hand up into the burst, so bright and frantic that she wondered if it would burn her. They moved like slow birds, churning upward toward the sun as a single creature. One butterfly landed on her outstretched fingers, and then another, and then another, before they too were swept up in the tornado.
A few minutes passed before all the butterflies were settled enough to land, once again bringing premature fall to the greenery.
“That,” she said, “was insane.”
“Hey! Hey, you two! You need to come to the front office and pay your admission fee!”
“Oh shit, run,” Jonah said, already bounding toward the exit.
Esther was not a runner. She was more of a shot put kind of girl. Still, in times of absolute need, she was able to improvise, and since going to jail for the second time in as many weeks didn’t seem worth it for an illicit visit to a butterfly farm, she followed Jonah. He threw open the side door and they plunged out into the bucketing rain and ran and ran and ran. There was far too much running associated with this boy as far as she was concerned, but Jonah was loving it, sprinting through the rain and clicking his heels as they made their great escape. Esther did the best she could to keep her cleavage from detaching by holding her hands to her chest.
They came to a stop under a tree and waited to see if the butterfly guy had followed them, but who was gonna chase two teenage hoodlums through the rain for minimum wage? And for that matter, how many people were so desperate to look at butterflies that they broke into the butterfly sanctuary? Couldn’t be many.
Esther peeled off her white gloves. Her pillbox hat was missing, lost somewhere along the getaway. Her Jackie O costume was soaked.
“Why is it I always end up wet when you’re around?” she said as she wrung out her gloves. Jonah collapsed to the damp grass, flat on his face, unable to breathe from laughing so hard before Esther realized what she’d said. “Oh God. Oh God,” she muttered as she walked quickly back into the rain, her cheeks tight and burning.
Through gasped breaths, Jonah yelled, “Wait, wait!” She didn’t wait, but he caught her anyway and buried his head into her shoulder and was still laughing, the bastard.
“Sorry I get you wet all the time,” he said.
“It’s not funny!” She yanked her shoulder away from him. “You’re not funny!”
“It’s a little funny.”
“I’m going home.”
“You gonna walk all the way there in the rain? ’Cause I’m not game to get my moped back until they’re closed.”
“That’s what I did the night you mugged me.”
“Pickpocketed, Esther. I pickpocketed you. Don’t say mugged. You make me sound like a thug. Pickpocketing requires finesse.”
“Whatever. I’m calling my mom. Maybe she can give us both a lift.” Esther knew that Rosemary wouldn’t answer, not if she was at the slots, but she rang her three times anyway. “I can’t get a hold of her.”
“You can come to my house if you want. ’Til the storm finishes. It’s not far from here. We can walk.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s just . . . It’s not nice.”
“Neither is my house.”
“Yeah, but this is different.”
“It’s up to you.”
Jonah rubbed the side of his neck. Esther thought, for a moment, that he would say no. But then he looked up from the sidewalk, his uncertainty replaced by a grin. A grin that she noticed, for the first time, had a layer of sadness behind it. “Let’s get you out of those wet clothes,” he said, rubbing the material of her sleeve between his fingers. “Maybe you should bring spares from now on. You know, if you’re always going to end up wet around me.”
“Are you ever going to let me live that down?”
“Don’t think so, Solar. Don’t think so at all.”