Well, this is a surprise. I never thought I'd write for this movie, but I just had to try this out. I don't remember the movie too well, so I did what I could with what I remember. Which is very little. I rewatched the ending of the movie to capture the atmosphere, and I rushed with it somewhere near the middle.
I know the cover is not from the movie, but this was the one I planned on using. Actually, that cover was what sparked this fanfic.
Dark, haunting clouds stretched from one end of the forest to the next. Below, the forest was alive with sounds of birdsong and other creatures were heard in the distance. Branches were crushed beneath the paws of wild predators, and the long trill of cicadas droned in the air. Crawling, curling weeds intertwined themselves around the trunks of trees, choking the branches of many bushes, and other such vegetation. The golden light of the sunset cut through the canopy, creating a beauty most indescribable.
An eclipse of moths fluttered through the air. One strayed from the group, and flapped its dusty, brown wings, keen on settling on the cluster of flowers below. The moth landed, wings opened. Its tiny tongue brushed over the pollen; it flapped its wings once and took off, escaping the hand of the young girl that attempted to grab it.
The girl looked up, watching the moth fly into the twilight. She brushed a strand of red brown hair from her face. Her seafoam green eyes gazed at every corner of the forest, from its towering trees to the smallest nooks housing troops of mushrooms.
"Imrie!"
The girl turned away from the flower and followed upon being called by her name. Up ahead of her, the woman was tall, graceful, welcoming and commanding. Her hair was blonde, falling down to her shoulders and a pair of glasses adorned her light brown eyes. She wore a long coat the color of deep coal with a gray sweater underneath. Her blue jeans were graying from countless washes, and had on a pair of brown boots with fur trim.
Her daughter was the complete opposite, in appearance, behavior and skill. She was too old to be a child but was not yet an adult. She had a pixie-pretty face, youthful and graced with soft lines. She wore a purple poncho that covered most of her body. The poncho had an ornamental butterfly on it. She wore a frilled pink skirt and a pair of light tan ugg boots. Her lips were painted a dark raspberry while her eyelids were brushed a smoky gray.
"What is this place?," asked Imrie.
"I'm about to tell you," replied Victoria.
The world peeled outward, the sky stretching on beyond the horizon. A cliff stood out, its point jutting out, allowing a great, panoramic view. The sunset provided with a rich display of brilliant colors most pleasant to the eye.
"Mom," uttered Imrie, "what are we doing here?"
Victoria turned around. They weren't near the cliff, but weren't far away from it either. In the spot they stood, they were a safe distance between the forest and the cliff.
"You remember I told you I had a little sister?," asked Victoria.
"Yeah?," said Imrie, afraid of what the answer to that would be.
"Well," turning around, Victoria locked eyes with the cliff, "this is where she died."
Imrie's face paled.
"Sit down," said Victoria.
As soon as Victoria and her daughter were seated, it took Victoria all of her might to summon up all the moments that occurred that very night.
"It was over thirty years ago," said Victoria as a start, "my sister Lily and I...we lived most of our childhood in this forest. Our mom died when I was three and Lily was one. I don't remember her at all."
Imrie kept a solemn look, but let her mother know that she was listening.
"I was told that my father brought me and Lily here to die. He was going to kill us and then himself. But...as he got ready to kill us, something else killed him."
Imrie's eyes widened. Her hand gripped the grass out of reflex.
"It was Mama," said Victoria, "you saw that cabin back in the woods a few miles back. Well, Mama killed him and saved us. Anyways, Mama... You know those paintings I make of the scary woman with leaves in her hair and dark eyes?"
"Yeah?" Imrie's voice dripped with dread.
"Well," continued Victoria, "we didn't know who or what she was at the time, just that she stopped my dad from killing us, and she took care of us."
"So...?"
"My dad's brother found us," explained Victoria, eyes gazing at the ground, "they were twins, so he looked familiar the moment we made eye contact. He and his girlfriend took us out of the forest, and brought us home. It was...hard. Harder than it was for anyone in my situation. I eventually learned to speak properly, I learned good manners, and to follows the rules. My sister on the other hand...she still acted feral, and she'd growl to keep others away.
"I didn't expect for Mama to follow us. She was angry at Lucas for taking us away from her. She hated Annabel for trying to be our new mom. Every time I talked to the psychologist about Mama he kept thinking that I was Mama and that I was really sick. For a moment I believed what he said, if only it would sate his need as a psychologist." Victoria paused, and took off her glasses. She pinched the crease in her forehead.
"Mom?," said Imrie.
"It's okay, honey," reassured Victoria. She ran her fingers through her hair, breathing in a stream of breath.
"So," muttered Imrie, "Mama is real?"
"Yes," answered Victoria, she turned toward the cliff, staring deep into the line that separated the sky and the earth. "But she's long gone now."
"You mean...?"
Victoria stood to her feet, spinning around, and strolling toward the cliff. This prompted Imrie to stand up and follow her. The fear coursed through her, interlaced with curiosity. She calmed down she she saw her mother stop before the edge. A strong wind blew Victoria's hair, moving in a banner-like way. Imrie stood next to her mother, accidentally kicking a small rock and sending it falling off the cliff. She gaped down, noticing that she was peering down over the cliff's edge. She stared, unsure how far the drop was, and saw that there was only a lake and a tree jutting out from the rockery.
"This was where Mama died," spoke Victoria, eyes gazing down at the lake below. "A long time ago, she had a baby."
"A baby?," repeated Imrie.
Victoria nodded. "They tried to take her baby away from her, so she fled and took her baby here. The authorities chased her, and, seeing how she had no other choice, she jumped with the baby in her arms."
"God," uttered Imrie.
"What she didn't know," said Victoria, "was that her baby was caught in those branches." She pointed at the scraggly tree poking out of the rocks. "She drowned and the baby was caught there, and the authorities found the baby and they took it with them, but it was dead.
"So Mama spent years looking for her baby. She waited and searched, but her baby wasn't there. Then she found us, and raised us."
"You and Aunt Lily were raised by a demon lady," uttered Imrie, glancing up at her mother. "That's..." She wracked her brains trying to think of a clever remark.
"I know." Victoria smiled gently, which disappeared just as quickly. She gazed at the forest beyond. The vanishing point always drew her attention, wondering how fast she could travel between here and the lands farther from this point.
"What happened to Lily?," inquired Imrie.
Victoria took in a deep breathe. A final release.
"It was late at night," she said, "she lured us here, intent on killing us, like she did years ago with her baby. She put flowers in our hair, she took off my glasses. She led us here to this cliff. I was terrified. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to say no to Mama, but as much as I contradicted myself, she did take care of us...
"But only because we were replacements for her baby. I stood there, afraid of dying, not being able to see life again. And then, Lucas and Annabel arrived. They found the remains of the baby she lost. She saw the bundle and recognized it. She all of sudden didn't look so monstrous anymore. You remember that painting I made six years ago? 'Loss of Perfection'?"
Imrie nodded. "Yeah..."
It was a painting that both pained and prided Victoria. A lot of effort was put into that painting. In the painting, Mama looked like she did the moment she laid eyes on her baby: skin as white as snow, dark eyes, hair that was a tone of brown that was almost black, and draped in wispy, pale robes, surrounded by butterflies. The rest of the background was a dull, black space.
"Well," said Victoria, "that's what she looked like. Lucas and Annabel led us away from the cliff. I thought we were safe until Lily called out for Mama. And Mama, in her unbridled motherly instincts, rejected her true baby and led Lily toward the cliff."
"Wha...?"
"I don't blame Lily for choosing to stay with Mama," spoke Victoria, giving a smile in resolve, "Mama was the only parent she knew for her whole life. She didn't know anything or anyone else. Mama tried to take me, too, but Annabel pulled me away, and all I could do was watch." A trickle of tears streamed down her face.
"Mom?," quoth Imrie, sidling closer, a look of worry plastering her face.
Victoria wiped her tears with her sleeve, sniffling.
"It's okay," she said, waving her off. She glanced up at the sky, letting the tension rise off in waves. Her head felt ready to explode. She let out a strained sob, held her breath, and finally let it out.
"You don't have to keep telling me, Mom," said Imrie gently.
"No," said Victoria in an instant, "I have to tell you this. I've lived with this secret for so long and now you're old enough to know this."
Imrie didn't answer, but waited for he mother to continue.
"I watched Lily and Mama float in the air over the cliff. Mama draped a cloak around herself and Lily." She took her glasses off again, placing a hand to her forehead. She didn't place her glasses back on her face, but simply looked on at the view, biting her lip.
Imrie felt like she had to change the subject, but she was rapt in listening to her story. Her mother didn't say much about her life story. All she knew was that her parents died when she little and lost her little sister later in life. Imrie got along with Lucas and Annabel and their children, Jared and Farrah. The paintings her mother made were mysterious, and hard to figure out. She would spend hours looking at them, trying to see what they represented. She tried to find the meaning behind them. Her mother would always say they mean what you want them to mean, in other words, she wasn't going to tell you the direct answer.
Listening to this story, Imrie didn't know whether it was real or not. It sounded like something out of a horror novel. She knew the atmosphere and tone of a horror story, and how it made you feel whenever you listened. Only this time, this didn't sound like something her mother would make up.
"You think this is all made up, do you?," said Victoria, looking up at her daughter.
"What? No, I—"
"It's okay," reassured Victoria, trying to sound soothing as well as playful. She breathed in stream of breath, putting her glasses back on. "But this is the truth."
Imrie nodded, not sure of what to say, or if anything she would say would be helpful.
"What happened to your sister?"
Victoria continued. "She and Mama plummeted off this cliff. I saw them, and I think I heard my heart literally break. I started crying. I lost my sister. I lost Mama. When I opened my eyes, I saw a moth land on my hand. I knew that it was Lily. Mama was always surrounded by moths, and I knew, I knew that my sister was still with me. She was still with us. And I watched them fly off into the night."
"Wow," uttered Imrie.
The two of them stood next to each other. In the horizon, the sky sank lower into the sky. Imrie had lost herself in this afternoon's adventures in the forest. She had a deep connection with the forest that she didn't know how to explain. Looking at her mother, she saw what she always saw: a woman made of flesh, bone, blood, and flawed as any other random stranger. In her eyes, her mother was more real than any of the paintings of the unearthly women she'd seen hanging in her gallery.
Her mother—her sun and moon—her everything, had a broken past, but she didn't let that still her wings. When Imrie wanted to talk about something, such as who her father was, or what happened to her sister, she would always get a simple answer, nothing else to add.
"Some myths say that butterflies and moths are the souls of people who died," remarked Victoria. She turned her head, looking Imrie in the eye. Her gaze was the kind of gaze with no shadows behind her eyes.
"Butterflies...," mused Imrie. She glimpsed down at the butterfly ornament on her poncho.
"Butterflies, moths, dragonflies, even fireflies." Victoria offered a sad smile.
"I still don't know why you've brought me here," reminded Imrie.
"It's the day my sister died," answered Victoria.
Imrie fell silent. Her eyes blinked. "Oh."
"We used to come here, every year since her death," explained Victoria. She looked over her shoulder, towards the surrounding forest. "But we stopped coming here when I was seventeen. Lucas said that it wasn't good for me, or him. He already made his peace with our dad's death, and Lily's.
"I blamed myself for not being able to stop Mama from taking Lily. I hated her for hurting Lucas, Annabel, and Aunt Jean. I wanted to move on, to join 'normal life,' but she was hellbent on taking me and Lily back with her. All because she was mad at those how took her baby."
"Why did they take her baby?," inquired Imrie. She glimpsed down at the cliff briefly before looking back at her mother.
Victoria shrugged, keeping her eyes on the scenery before her.
"I don't know, Imrie," she responded, "she escaped from an asylum to get her baby back. She was mentally ill. Lucas told me that after we went home. All I know is that she couldn't have her baby with her at the asylum, they took it away, so she took it back, and ended up dying for doing so.
"If you're wondering, I am mad at Mama for taking Lily away from me. But to Lily, Mama was her whole world, and vice versa. Lily didn't know anything but Mama and this forest. But I was also mad at myself for not being able to bring Lily back with me. Maybe she and I could've been happy together. But I was just thinking that to make myself feel better."
Imrie approached Victoria, trying to look strong but sympathetic at the same time. She placed a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry about your sister, Mom," she said.
"Thanks, honey," replied Victoria. "You don't know how long I've been waiting to tell this story."
"I know, Mom," retorted Imrie.
"I paint to remember Lily," said Victoria, twisting around to look back at the forest. "I studied lepidopterology to understand the past."
"Yeah," muttered Imrie, "yeah, I get that now."
The sunk had descended lower, and Victoria could already see the moon loom over her. A crisp, white disk chasing away the shadows and illuminating the sky. There were still traces of bright orange left. The clouds engulfed the sky in a dark cloak of shadows. Everything from the sprawling forest to the rich sunset was hauntingly beautiful.
"Your Aunt Annabel and Uncle Lucas have stopped coming here," reiterated Victoria, "but I come here to remember, and to remind myself."
"Remind yourself?," said Imrie.
"Of where I came from," answered Victoria, she briefly looked over her shoulder, then back at the horizon. "I spent the first eight years of my life in this forest, foraging for food, living in the decrepit shack, surviving winters, sometimes even going days without food."
A twinge gripped Imrie's stomach, making her grab at her belly.
"God..."
"Are you okay?," queried Victoria. She brushed back a strand of brown hair from her daughter's face. Imrie nodded back.
"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just...all the hell you lived through."
"I know," said Victoria, cupping her daughter's cheek, "but that's behind me. But you know, my life didn't have a good beginning, but I was able to change that. Look at me now, I'm a renown artist, I have my butterflies; but most importantly, I have you, mon papillon." A smile grew on her. A genuine one. Imrie smiled back.
A lone moth fluttered above the two, prompting Victoria to notice it first. She smiled.
"Look," she said.
Imrie glance up and saw the moth fly over her and her mother. Victoria held up her hand and, to Imrie's surprise, the moth landed on her mother's hand. She watched in astonishment, her mouth hanging open.
The moth was brown with, to Imrie's surprise, a trace of blue on its wings. The way that Victoria observed it indicated something that was familiar to her, but unknown to Imrie.
Like a bolt of lightning, it hit her.
"Is that...?"
"Lily," said Victoria as a way to finish her sentence. She kept her smile, and gazed at the moth.
The moth crawled on Victoria's hand, all while keeping its wings opened, and its minuscule tongue lightly brushing against her skin.
"Do you want to try?," asked Victoria, holding her hand out toward Imrie.
"Me?," quipped Imrie, looking at her and at the moth.
"Go ahead," she encouraged.
Imrie shyly held up her hand, fingers splayed. She watched the moth with burning interest. The moth crawled on Victoria's hand before flapping its wings and fluttering over to Imrie's hand. The girl let out a squeal of excitement. Victoria smiled.
A swift breeze blew in, which was when the moth flapped its wings and took to the sky. Imrie couldn't take her eyes off it. Then she saw another set of moths fly by. Imire spun around, jaw dropping open when she saw a whole eclipse of moths. Her mother kept her smile, watching the moths soar above her.
"Wow," uttered Imrie. She held up a hand, her fingers brushing against one of them. "Where's my camera?" She rummaged through her pockets. She pulled out her cellphone and held it up, clicking the camera button. She took a snapshot.
Victoria watched the moths fly. Her daughter took several photos, thinking the moment was phenomenal, and with the setting sun, it looked even more amazing.
"Look," hooted Imrie, lowering her phone. She crept closer to her mother, the phone held up for her to see.
"These are great," commented Victoria.
All photos were of the numerous moths flying in the air. Victoria observed all dozen of the photos before Imrie out her phone away, tucking into her pocket.
The final traces of sun remained, and what surrounded her and her mother was the gloomy twilight. Lights appeared from within the forest. Fireflies. Cricket chirps resonated in the air, trilling in compass to the sound of an owl's hoot. The moon hung over them, giving off a dim white glow. Stars popped up in the velvety blue, sparkling brilliantly like diamonds.
Victoria and Imrie stood on the cliff, relishing the insouciant backdrop and the sounds of the forest.
Imrie means "musical one." In case you don't know, Imrie is fourteen years old. Victoria had her at twenty-seven, so yes, she's forty-one in this fic. A lepidopterologist is someone who studies butterflies and moths. Victoria studied art to remember Lily. It's how she honors her.
Thank you for reading. ^_^ Don't forget to review. :)
