The girl stands alone in a meadow full of butterflies. Sometimes she dances, but there is no music and there are only so many dances she can do alone, so she stands. When she is very still the butterflies land on her bones, perching on her brow and trailing along her clavicles like kisses. When they start crawling along the inside of her ribcage she dislodges them with a rapid, energetic dance that sends her skirts spinning up around her. She hears the butterflies fluttering around her, joining in her dance with silk wings.
The bones of her feet find a hollow in the ground and she stops. The butterflies continue to flutter around her head until they realize that she's stopped moving and begin landing on her again. She knows this place. Though she can't see it, she knows. She can smell the bed of marigolds in front of her. If she were to bend down just a little she could touch the flowers with the tips of her fingers. She doesn't. She stands and lets the butterflies settle on her bones. This is where she sent her love away more than two years ago, opened a door and let him walk through. He was just going to say goodbye. He would say goodbye to his family and come back as soon as the door opened, and Mariposa would never let him go again. That was more than two years ago. He hasn't come home yet. She worries that he may never come home, that perhaps there is someone else in that world of flesh and blood that he loves more than her, more than home.
There is a scream. The Skeleton Girl turns her head towards it, her never-wavering smile taking on a dark cast. The butterflies rise up in a cloud around her.
She takes a second to take in the musky scent of the marigolds one more time before turning away from the flowers and walking back towards town, where the leafless trees are draped in warm lanterns and skeletons walk the streets. Her people need her. No matter how much she wants to stand here until her fiancé comes home, she is needed elsewhere. He would never be so selfish, so she won't either.
But she wants him home.