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The greenhouse sits on an open stretch of lawn at the end of a flagstone path. Orca walks ahead, her basket bouncing on her shoulders, ferns splashing the hem of her skirt with rainwater. She pulls open the door, and Lucius bounds inside, vigorously shaking himself off.
The greenhouse is filled to bursting with every kind of plant imaginable—most of which I can’t identify. It’s all a chaos of fruits, vegetables, ferns, and vines springing up in every direction.
Dozens of butterflies flutter back and forth like lost letters in a windstorm—yellow swallowtails and bright orange monarchs drift from the morning glories to the orchids hanging from the center of the room, where rainwater flows in, filling up a stone basin built in the floor.
“Good morning, my friends,” Orca singsongs, reaching up to stroke the blossom of a bright blue morning glory. Viny arms of plant life reach out from every direction like adoring fans bracing at the edge of a crowd, eager to touch Orca as she walks down the row. She plucks a few tiny pink flowers from a hanging basket and slips them into her braid.
“What do you think of it?” she asks, kneeling beside the basin and scooping out water with a clay pot.
I shake my head, lost for words. “It’s… otherworldly.”
“No, no, you’re otherworldly.” She tucks the water pot against her side and starts walking down the row, watering plants. A tiny pale-blue butterfly dances around her head as if attracted by the scent of a new flower.
“What’s with the butterflies?” I ask as Orca moves on to the next plant. The little blue wings go with her.
“Oh, they help to pollinate the plants. We have bees, too.”
I stiffen. “Where?”
“Don’t worry; they’re very shy.” She giggles, returning to the basin to refill her pot. “They like Papa best. He’s the one who coaxed them here in the first place. Kindly bees, he always calls them. They have plenty of flowers to drink from and protection from the bad weather—what more could they wish for? We try to give them the most delicious nectar. And they give us the most delicious honey in return.”
A swallowtail flutters over and lands on a morning glory hanging near my head. I watch as it drinks from the flower’s center.
“So… this is where you grow all your food.”
Orca shakes her head. “Not all of it. We have a garden in the yard for the hardier vegetables, like potatoes and squashes—but they won’t be ready until September, at least.”
“And how do you get through the winter?”
“We preserve all we need for the coldest months,” Orca says, watering the tomato plants. “The potatoes keep well in the cellar. We never run out of food.”
I watch the little blue butterfly do a few touch-and-goes above Orca’s head before finally landing in her golden-brown hair.
“They like you,” I say with a smile.
Orca looks up. “Who?”
I reach over and gently lift the butterfly out, feeling the brush of her hair against my fingers.
“An Acmon blue,” she whispers, admiring the paper-thin wings folding open and shut. “That reminds me… What is the butterfly effect?”
Another entry she read in my journal, no doubt.
“It’s the idea that something small and seemingly insignificant can spur a sequence of events that lead to a massive disaster. Chaos.” I study the Acmon blue on my fingertip. “The theory is that a butterfly flapping its wings could cause the first breath of wind that eventually turns into a hurricane.”
As if feeling personally attacked, the tiny blue butterfly takes off again, fluttering away to find more flowers.
Orca looks up at me, eyes wide. “Does that really happen?”
I shrug. “Who knows? Can’t prove it, I guess.”
“But you can’t disprove it, either.” She grins and turns back to the tomatoes, reaching in to twist red fruits off the vine. “And you think it happens with more than just hurricanes?”
I step in to help her harvest the tomatoes. “It’s in everything. Not just the big catastrophes people try to avoid, but the little things, too. The everyday stuff we don’t think about. The way we talk to each other or don’t. What we do for others… or fail to do. We always want to blame things on chance, like the universe is just messed up and we’re powerless to stop it—to prevent disasters from happening. But what if we can? What if we’re all butterflies, and we think we have nothing to do with the hurricane, but really it all started because of us?”
Orca frowns as she pieces it together in her mind. “So chaos… isn’t chaos, then.”
I bite back a grin. “More like unintentional consequences of intentional actions.”
