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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78294 ***
+
+
+
+
+The Golden Flutterby
+
+by Craig Rice [Pseudonym of Georgiana Ann Craig]
+
+
+  _She was magic, meant for love--and like so much of beauty, strangely
+  marked by fate._
+
+
+
+
+Of course it happened a very long time ago. Today, there is barely
+a charred, overgrown trace left of the buildings that burned, the
+curious, helter-skelter collection of gaily painted little two and
+three apartment houses that huddled together, down a steep valley
+scarp from the broad avenue above. The whole affair, indeed, is almost
+forgotten--almost.
+
+He is a mature man now, the head of a family, successful in his
+business, liked and respected, a solid citizen in all things. But _he_
+still remembers. As long as he lives, he will never forget.
+
+And the little children--all grown up now, of course--surely _they_
+must remember, too.
+
+It began on a night that was windless and clear, neither warm nor
+cold--a night that was very quiet. He was young, and he was lonely,
+a stranger in the town in those days. All by himself, he had gone
+into one of the small, shadowy bars that dotted the broad avenue that
+crowned the hillside. He sat there alone, scarcely touching his glass,
+not seeking companions, all but oblivious of the men and women who
+moved and got acquainted with each other all around him.
+
+He had no idea how long she had been sitting beside him when first he
+noticed her. Even then, it was the drink that he noticed first, rather
+than the girl. The glass that held it was conventional enough--thin
+and gracefully stemmed--but the drink itself glowed with a color he
+could not remember ever having seen before. A gold color it was, yet
+with more light, more luminescence than gold. It was marvelously clear,
+yet there was an occasional hint of swirling mist in its depths that
+appeared and vanished and appeared again. He watched it for a while
+caught by its almost hypnotic effect, and then he looked at the girl.
+
+She was golden, from the hair wound and braided so smoothly about her
+head, to the gold kid slippers on her small and fragile feet. Her
+dress, of some soft, glistening, silky stuff, was a deeper shade of the
+same gold, her soft, delicate skin seemed almost to be touched with a
+faint, powdery, golden dust. He failed to register, and never could
+recall, the color of her eyes. Perhaps, they were golden, too.
+
+All at once, he realized she was aware that he was staring at her,
+that she seemed faintly amused. He looked away and stammered something
+inadequate about the curious color of the drink in her glass.
+
+She smiled, a sweet radiant smile, and pushed the glass toward him.
+
+Neither then, nor in memory, could he be sure she said, “Would you
+like to try it?” in a faint whisper, or that his own mind formed the
+words from some projected thought. For that matter, did she ever speak
+at all? Of this, too, he never was quite sure. But of course, he
+would remind himself in afterdays, she must have spoken when she told
+the children stories. Or did she? Did they understand the words as,
+perhaps, he had, without ever hearing them? He never knew.
+
+He did know that he tried the drink. It was cool but not cold, pungent
+yet sweet--almost too sweet with a curious, new flavor he could not
+quite identify, a flavor of half-remembered fruits and flowers. Cool
+and sweet and strangely heady--he took a sip of it and felt a faint,
+delightful tingling in his fingers and toes.
+
+They sat together silently, while strangers moved and chattered all
+around them and paid as little attention as if neither of them was
+there. Then it was late, and the lights were being turned out, and the
+chairs stacked on the tables.
+
+He said, almost without thinking, “Will you come home with me?” It was
+as easy as asking for a match.
+
+She said, “Of course,” in that soft whisper that might not have been a
+whisper at all. Then she rose and linked his arm with hers, and they
+went out of the small, shadowy bar. It was as simple as that.
+
+They walked down the broad avenue together and paused at the top of
+the stairs that led down between the little buildings. They were steep
+stairs, narrow and winding and dimly lighted, and he turned to her and
+said, “You must let me carry you down.”
+
+He lifted her and she seemed to weigh nothing at all--exactly nothing.
+It wasn’t that she was remarkably small, it was simply that she didn’t
+weigh anything. Yet he thought hardly anything about it at the time.
+
+Down the long, steep stairs, past the paths and little flights of
+stairs that led off in all directions, down to the wide, gardened space
+halfway to the valley floor, where the children played in the daytime,
+from which his own little flight of wooden stairs led. Up to his door,
+and into the two tiny rooms that were his home in those days.
+
+He never was quite sure how long she stayed. It might have been weeks
+or months. It was days, certainly. He was on vacation, and there was no
+routine coming and going to and from his insignificant job to wind the
+clock of his mind.
+
+He was certain of but one thing--then and always afterwards. This was
+the happiest time of his entire life.
+
+It seemed never the least strange to him that she seemed to have no
+other home, neither friends nor mere people to inquire about her. Nor
+had she possessions of her own.
+
+Save for the carrying of her down the long flight of stairs, he
+scarcely dared touch her again but with the rarest and lightest caress
+of a hand. He had a feeling that, somehow, she was too fragile, too
+delicate, too perishable for coarse human contact, that a normal caress
+would shatter her into glistening golden fragments, that she might,
+perhaps, disappear altogether. Sometimes, she would smile at him, the
+sweet radiant smile, and brush light fingers fondly over his face. Yet,
+while he knew her fingers touched him, he could scarcely feel them.
+
+It did seem curious to him now and then, during the time they were
+together, that she never slept or, at least, never seemed to sleep.
+She did come to rest from time to time, perched on the arm of a chair,
+perhaps poised gracefully on the couch, her exquisite face in repose,
+motionless save for an occasional fluttering of her small hands.
+Watching her, he would fall asleep himself, confident that, when he
+wakened, she would still be there in the two tiny rooms.
+
+It was down in the garden that the very young children who lived in the
+other buildings on the hillside would come to her. She would rest on
+the lowest step of his little flight of wooden stairs, and tell them
+stories--fabulous, wonderful, marvelous stories. It mattered not to the
+children whether she told her stories in words or in dreamlike thought
+projections. The children heard them and understood them, and watched
+her with eyes sometimes gay, sometimes grave, sometimes aglow with
+sheer enchantment.
+
+She made little cakes for them, too, the sugary, crumbly little cakes
+that, with the sweet, golden drink, seemed to be her only food. She
+loved them all, and they loved her.
+
+It was a very lovely time, a dreamy time, and he was happy.
+
+Then, awakening in the midst of a night that was windless and clear
+and very quiet, he heard the rustle and crackle of flames. He rushed
+outside to the little apartment landing and saw that the lower
+buildings were ablaze, that the flames were creeping up towards his own
+little garden.
+
+He ran back into the house to sweep her up to safety. She shook her
+head, radiating a strange blend of sadness and expectation. It didn’t
+matter to him whether she spoke aloud or not. “The children,” was what
+she said. He understood. He raced down into the garden and began to
+knock on all the doors.
+
+How he managed it all, he was never quite sure. From doorway to
+doorway, from window to window he ran, waking everyone, collecting the
+children, shepherding them up the hill to the broad avenue and safety.
+There were fire engines coming now.
+
+The flames were flickering hungrily, close to his own little home when
+he reached it and ran lightly up the stairs, to where she stood poised
+on the tiny landing.
+
+She had taken a scarf of the same glistening, golden silky stuff as her
+dress, and bound it around her eyes like a blindfold. She stretched out
+her hands to him, and he prepared to lift her and carry her away to
+safety.
+
+Perhaps, in his fear and in the urgency of the moment, he moved too
+quickly, too roughly--for, suddenly, the scarf came unbound and floated
+into his hands.
+
+She gave him one long look, of anguish, of incomprehensible despair, of
+final farewell. Then she turned and, before he could move to stop her,
+she had gone. She seemed, in his horrified eyes, to dart, to fly, into
+the very heart of the flames. It was as if, having seen them, she was
+drawn to them as by a magnet. It was as if a moth....
+
+Afterward, of course, they called him a hero. They made a great fuss
+and pother over him. There were pictures of him in the newspapers, and
+pictures of the children. But whenever he spoke of _her_, everyone
+looked at him kindly, even pityingly. “_Shock_,” they said. “Shock and
+the horror of the fire.”
+
+But he could never quite accept this theory--for how did they explain
+the scarf he still had, the golden, glistening, gossamer scarf, that
+he still has to this day. The children never spoke to him of her, but,
+for a long time afterward, they looked at him with sad, remembering,
+pitying eyes. Did _they_ know? He was never to find out. By the time he
+acquired the wisdom to ask them, it was too late. They were no longer
+children--they were merely boys and girls.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note:
+
+
+  This etext was produced from Satellite Science Fiction October 1956
+  (vol. 1, no. 1). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+  the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78294 ***