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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 ***