Balance of Fragile Things (20 page)

On the Wing

Endangered Karner Blue / G2 Imperiled Status

Posted on October 19

There is something strange afoot here in Cobalt, New York. I feel it. Every time I feel I am getting closer, the answers slip from my fingers. It seems as though someone does not want me to know more about the butterfly, or about the peculiar goings-on.

Though I will not disclose the location specifically—you will just have to take my word for it—I came across a hole in the earth that leads to a sort of collection of passageways under Cobalt. The surroundings around the mouth of what I will now call the mineshaft (for what else could it be?) is showing strange symptoms of poisoned earth. The last time I entered the hole, I spotted another one of these mutant butterflies. It was so close to death, having been born with an incomplete body, not fully metamorphosed. I don't know what to do about my findings, as they aren't really concrete. However, I feel that I've stumbled upon something. These two things have to be connected. Nothing in nature is coincidence.

As I was observing a few small whites flying playfully in a splash of sun—as they are always seeking warmth, being cold-blooded creatures and all—I realized how my eyes had longed to see a butterfly or anything flying in the air around town. When it is cold and cloudy, sometimes I will not see an insect at all, as they mostly hibernate. Butterflies in the area that are born from their chrysalis late in the year tend to go into suspended animation called
diapause
in order to survive the harsh cold. I've heard that butterflies in the Arctic do this in order to be there to pollinate the flowers in the springtime. I feel saddened at the end of a season. I do not look forward to the cold. The encroaching cold reminds me that I will not see many of my favorite sights for months. I take comfort in the thought that they will return when the sun strengthens. I can't imagine what it would be like for the ice to melt next spring and still not see them flying. Endangerment and extinction terrify me more than anything else.

The Karner Blue,
lycaeides melissa samuleis, Plebejus
, was named by the famous Vladimir Nabokov after the town in which he'd first identified it: Karner, New York. For a small creature, it has a lot of names. I've never seen one, not here—too far south from the Capitol district. But it is quite extraordinary even in photographs. The male's topside is a bright vibrant blue with pumpkin crescents; the female is a grayish brown. They both have a smattering of black spots circled in white. I am going to collect some photos to see if this Singh Blue could be a Karner gynandromorph.

Why is the Karner endangered? That's the question many lepidopterists are asking. Some believe its decline is correlated to the destruction of its main food source, the lupine. Others worry about the lack of canopy under which the females seek shelter and shade to deposit their eggs. Many agree with that one detail, whether the Karner prefers living in flowering lupine or not, whether it likes oak savannahs, old fields or pine barrens—they all believe it's habitat destruction that has caused its demise. Sometimes nature, too, makes creatures not fit for the environment.

I read about a moth in a museum in London that emerged from its cocoon as a gynandromorph. Half of its body was female and the other half male, though it wasn't as complete as a true hermaphrodite and lacked complete anatomy to actually reproduce as a male or female. It's amazing to see, but also, so sad. If this is a Karner gynandromorph, then nature is playing a cruel joke on us all. Instead of producing an endangered creature, she offers this newly emerged butterfly nothing. Without the ability to mate or lay eggs, its birth and death will not impact their already struggling species.

1 COMMENT

I agree; I am sorry. It's almost like a harsh message from the wild stating her time is almost over. —BF Girl NY

S
he sat up in bed, her fingers clutching the warm comforter that had cocooned her during the frosty and wet night. As her pounding heart maintained a dangerous rate, she caught her breath. The nightmare still lingered precariously on the edge of her waking mind.
Just a dream
. She exhaled and turned on the lamp. Three scenes replayed in her mind as the rest of the unintelligible dreamscape faded into the background: a sea of people dying from a plague, rising water consuming land, and finding her favorite slippers, which had slid under the living room couch. She'd missed the comfort they gave her aching feet after work. Maija turned toward Paul's half of the bed, smiling at this possibility. That was when she realized he wasn't there. The mattress was cold. The clock read four in the morning. The image of the plague returned.

She put on her robe and walked around the quiet house. She could hear her son's and daughter's familiar breathing sounds, Oma's light snore, and Papaji's grumbling. She walked through the kitchen, and when she turned into the living room, she noticed that the garage door was open a crack. She entered and saw a small glimmer of light behind the tall wall of boxes, and she followed it to Paul, discovering him inside some sort of rickety office, asleep atop the makeshift desk. His hair, without a turban, was mussed. Stunned, Maija took in the maps, charts, and lists hanging on the walls. For a split second she wondered if Paul had suffered a schizophrenic breakdown. She moved closer to read the headlines of the newspaper clippings: Water Main Down on Main Street, PMI's Doors Close as Unemployment Office Doors Open, Community Group Angry over Unexplained Construction. She knew he was upset about the construction on Main Street. Who wasn't?

Maija didn't know what to do. If she woke Paul, then he'd know she knew about his office—and she wanted him to confide in her naturally. But she couldn't leave him in the chilly garage. Maija tapped him on the shoulder, then scurried back into the house and into bed. Within a few minutes, Paul's cold body joined her under the covers, and all was as it should have been, or close to it.

Her nightmares, however, continued to pester her throughout her morning at Jones Drugs as she counted pills, controlled medicinal interactions, and served her customers their weekly cures. Seeing the plague victims' faces, covered in rashes and boils, was most difficult. Others, trapped in a flood, gasped for air as they swallowed more and more water, just as Eleanora had done in Maija's earlier visions. Her dream had been so real she could smell the sea and feel the sting of salt in her throat. At times like this, when Maija encountered something premonitory, she felt absolutely alone. She'd thought her mother's presence here in Cobalt would comfort her, but it hadn't. The dreams and visions remained solely her property, like a haunted house she couldn't sell.

With her doubt and fear building steadily, the pressures of work almost pushed Maija over the edge. Every phone line in the pharmacy lit up. Tom and Shandy did their parts, and Maija dove in as well.

“Hello, pharmacy.”

“Maija, it's Eleanora. Could you deliver Tracy's prescriptions? It's just not possible for us to come in today.” And she hung up without listening to Maija's response.

Maija took the opportunity to get out of the pharmacy, even if it was a drive to her least favorite development to visit her least favorite family.

As she drove up the hill to the Heights, Maija could see from this vantage point exactly how saturated the ground had become: Small streams leading nowhere ran down through the trees, and mud and soil that usually held trees firmly in the ground had turned into swamp, the roots defenseless. Peculiar how unprepared the ground had been for so much water—there was just too much. Sandbags were piled around the entryways into low-lying houses. Maija shook her head as her car fishtailed into a turn past the gate in the Heights.

The door into the Finch residence was open just a bit when she arrived. Peculiar, she thought. With security system and the paranoia she'd seen earlier, she never expected to walk right in through an open door.

“Hello?” she said to the quiet foyer.

The air inside was still. With the small white bag in her hand, filled with bottles of antibiotics and opiate painkillers, she went toward the kitchen, where she heard voices. She hid behind a wall and listened.

“The school called, Nora. Some kids have the flu,” said a man, who Maija assumed was Herbert Finch.

“Tracy's not there. Why'd they call?” Eleanora said.

“They just went down the list. Still haven't traced the origins,” Herbert responded.

“I wish Tracy only had the flu,” Eleanora said.

“I do, too. But she's—”

“I don't want to talk about it.” Maija heard Eleanora's heels tap across the tiled floor. “This is your fault. You couldn't pass up that deal, could you?”

“This again? You were with me during the development. You were there when I signed the deed. When I bought you that ring and those clothes, it didn't seem to bother you. But now you're mad? You're no better than me.”

“Now our daughter has—”

“We don't know the cause. Not for sure.”

“I know. I know because I am her mother.”

“There you go again with that intuition crap.”

As Maija listened, she looked around the spotless house. She saw not one single speck of dust and not one flower arrangement out of place. Suddenly she heard a voice behind her.

“Mrs. Singh?”

When she turned, she realized she should have known the face looking up at her, but it was a shade of whom she'd been, even a short time ago. Tracy's eyes were sunken into her skull, her blue eyes bluer because of the redness in them. Her hair was wet, as were her pajamas. “Dear Tracy, were you outside? In this mess?”

“I needed some air.”

Eleanora and Herbert turned the corner.

“Tracy? Why are you wet? Were you in the park again? I told you not to go out there. You'll catch a cold!” Eleanora went to Tracy and wiped her face with a dishtowel.

“Yeah, whatever.” Tracy shrugged off her mother and walked slowly up the stairs.

Maija handed the bag of medicine to Eleanora. “Here you go. Let me know if you have any questions.” She walked toward the front door.

“Um, Maija…” Eleanora's voice cracked.

“Yes?” She turned.

“Nothing. Drive safe out there.”

“Yes.” Maija jogged to her car. This was too much. Tracy was ill. There was a flu outbreak at school. Eleanora blamed Herbert for something. How could he have caused Tracy's illness? That was impossible.

When she returned to the pharmacy, the phones were ringing off the hook.

“Pharmacy.”

“Mrs. Singh, please.”

“Speaking.”

“This is Mrs. Cohen's secretary at Cobalt High.”

Maija's heart sank, and she pressed the receiver closer to her ear. Mrs. Cohen's secretary requested that she or Paul, or even Oma, please retrieve both Vic and Isabella as both were “vomiting like there's no tomorrow.” She said there was a flu outbreak at Cobalt High and almost half the students were green, turning green, or at the worst stage: pale as a sheet. That's the stage her children, as it turned out, had reached. As soon as Maija hung up the phone, the pit in her stomach grew. An epidemic was component number one of her apocalyptic nightmare.

Maija surveyed her surroundings and saw that Tom had already left on his mid-morning sandwich run to Wegmans, which meant she was manning the pill ship alone. She knew that Paul was busy at the station and she couldn't bother him. Oma and Papaji didn't have a car at the ready, not that they could drive with one almost blind and the other with only one foot. Maija grabbed her purse and keys and locked the register.

“Family emergency,” Maija said to Shandy as she left.

Maija expected that the children would have been quarantined in an area in the high school, but when she arrived, she was surprised to see so many kids sitting in halls, slouched in chairs, lined up in the bathrooms. It was a catastrophe indeed. She found Vic and Isabella beside each other on the floor outside the nurse's office. It was dreadful for Maija to open the door and see their limp bodies.

“Izzy? Vic? Wake up.” She lifted Isabella and Vic to standing and walked them to the car, driving home as fast as she could without jarring them.

Maija put them each to bed in Vic's room and placed trashcans on the floor beside each of them. She realized she was shaking only when she stepped into the kitchen and saw her mother and Papaji together. They were having tea and pound cake. The television was on, and Papaji was watching the local news.

“Harry, I think you have a crush on za weather girl,” Oma said quietly.

“No, no, not true. She's just very intelligent.”

“She has a weather vocabulary minute at za end of her section,” Oma explained to Maija. “But she is looking pretty. I guess with za extra time she's getting because of za rains, they hired a makeup artist.”

Papaji held up his hand to silence the chatter. “Shh!”

“Tanya Earhart here, and I've brought a guest with me, Professor Stuart March from Pierce College. He has an interesting perspective on the recent flooding we've seen in town. Professor?”

“See? She's intelligent and has smart friends.” Papaji sat back and seemed to bask in the glow that emanated from Tanya's flushed cheeks and pink lips. Maija guessed he didn't hear a word Professor March said.

Maija went to the kitchen. Her mother followed.

“What's wrong,
meita?
It's obvious you are troubled, neh?”

“Yes, Ma.” Maija sat on a stool. “It's a dream I had last night.”

“What was it about? Maybe we can figure out what it means.”

“It was terrible.” Maija proceeded to describe the various scenes that still haunted her.

“Sounds like a nightmare, dear, nothing more. I've had them before.”

“No! Don't you see? There's a flu epidemic at the school. It can't be a coincidence.”

“Kids get sick all za time.” Oma patted Maija's hand softly, but she shook it free. “Anyway, sounds like a normal dream, mit za slippers and all.”

“Half of the Cobalt High students are ill. Something worse is going to happen.” Maija leaned her face on her hands. “This virus is going to spread.”

“Maija, what is happening?”

“I told you—”

“Not your dream. You really think that you can see things on such a scale? Why? Why would you be chosen to have such sight? It's unheard of.”

“What would you know of it, Ma? You've never had to deal with this. You've never had visions come true.”

“Haven't you been, well, off lately, neh? Your visions haven't all been true.”

Maija looked at her mother and replied, “Yes, I know, but this one—”

“It's just not reasonable. You should get some rest, neh? Here, eat some cake.”

Maija took the cake and tried to breathe.

An hour later, Maija checked on her children. The room was stuffy, so she opened the curtains and cracked a window to let in fresh air. She finally relaxed. Caring for her children made all the supernatural worries drift away. She sat on the edge of Vic's bed and patted his back gently. She was being silly; these kids just have the flu. You've seen it before, she reminded herself. They'll vomit all day and maybe even tomorrow, too, then they will sleep and wake refreshed though skinny. You'll feed them broth and rice, and soon they will be at school again.

“Mama?” Vic's back was to her.

“Mmm?”

He turned. “Mama, I don't feel good.”

Maija's heart dropped. Vic's face was covered in large hives and a red prickly rash. He was going to vomit, so she got out of the way and directed him to the wastebasket she'd placed next to his bed. The worst thing she could do was react to how awful he looked. The swelling almost sealed his eyes shut, and the red rash seemed to be spreading down his neck and body.

“It's okay, Vic. Breathe, breathe.” She rubbed his back. When he returned to sleep, she rose quietly and left.

The receiver shook in her hand as the receptionist at the family doctor's office put her on hold. Maija nodded to her mother, who was watching her from the living room couch.

“Yes, boils, I think. Hives, vomiting, rash, should I bring him in? Yes, he goes to Cobalt High. An outbreak? Of what? Just the flu? The flu doesn't look like this—his eyes are swollen shut. So, this is common? No, but you think that—well, how would you know? How long? Three days. Okay. Fine. Yes, yes, I'll do that. Thank you.”

When she hung up, she felt better. At least there were others with the same symptoms. At least they weren't the only ones. She recalled the medicine that she'd delivered to Tracy Finch. It was an anti-nausea medicine, and she did look weak. Perhaps she was the source of this terrible outbreak. Leave it to a Finch to start something like a plague, Maija thought.