Urgent information required on the identity and whereabouts of these missing women. All previous wives of the anthropologist Professor Gabriel Hummingbird, brother of Ignatius Hummingbird. Scotland Yard investigating.
I eat the ooze, lick the pastry clean.
Boo Boo
Sixteen
I am engaged to be married to the Professor. The wedding is next week. I examine myself in my looking glass and touch the black heart round my throat. Am I uninteresting, ugly, wretched? Am I a lunatic, gone mad, a killing machine? Am I a pretty girl, beautiful girl? None of these things, all of these things. What am I? Butterfly, butterfly, butterfly, butterfly, butterfly.
I think about the Angel-Eater, the tattoo on my back. I am marked with her, she is part of me. Under my skin, inside my bones. Black wings, sharp as a razor edge. Slice me up with your love; dissect me. Open me up and find butterflies inside my stomach,
Today the Professor is in London on business. More butterflies to capture. I wander round the house. My head is full of prisons, vaults, hidden chambers, locked windows and doors. I keep hearing a beating of wings. Mr Angelcakes sleeps next to me every night but he says things will change after the wedding. I must kill the Professor and take the butterfly and then Mr Angelcakes will lick my skin with a thousand green-tongued kisses.
I cannot kill him yet. He has my soul under glass.
Today Detective Waxford arrives. I tell him where Detective White is. Finally he smashes the frame and sets them free. Mr Loveheart looks at me strangely. His eyes follow me about like a puppy dog. Does he know what I am? My black dress slips like trickling black waters along the courtyard. He follows me outside into the warmth.
“You are engaged to be married? You’ve not picked well, Miss Boo Boo. He’s a bit of a shit.”
“Who would you rather I married, Mr Loveheart?”
“I was hoping we could get to know each other a little better. You’re very compelling.”
“Your timing is terrible.”
He steps closer. “Really?”
I throw him in the moat.
Night-Time Fizz
Puffs of black magic. Sleepy time.
My
head
is
a spoon.
You fill me with jam.
The Angel-Eater. Wings beating above me.
My spooky sister.
“Hello again,” I say. My words are bubbles; they make pops.
Black flutter. Insect judder. Flippety flap.
Give me some sugar.
Make me your cake.
I dream of butterflies, I dream of butter.
I dream of butterflies.
I dream of butter.
Don’t lose your head, Horatio!
The Beetles have invited me for afternoon tea. Repugnant things! Slippery black, slime tongued socialites. It is Wednesday. It is three days before my wedding. The Professor is still away in London, staying with his brother; perhaps a bachelor party? He will not return until the Saturday. So I must entertain myself as best I can. Mr Angelcakes and I play hide and seek. He smells so bad, I find him easily in the pantry, small pieces of rotten greenish black flesh falling from him.
“You need new skin, Mr Angelcakes.”
“When you kill the Professor I will be strong again. Perhaps I will wear his skin.”
The gloom dark of the pantry makes his eyes glint putrid yellow.
“Go and play with the Beetles. Squash them.” He smiles with what is left of his lips.
I wear my long black velvet dress. Only ever black for the Professor. He doesn’t explain his preferences, he just expects conformity.
The Beetle mansion, cream coloured and orderly. A nice neat green lawn. A perfectly acceptable border of flowers, neatly positioned, controllable.
Lady Beetle and her son sit wearing a dark shade of purple in their garden. A tea pot and tea cups neatly arranged before them. A pile of delicate sandwiches and fairy-like cakes. Beetle, I think. Beetle, rolling dung, living in shit.
“Good afternoon, Miss Frogwish,” says Lady Beetle, dryly. She is wondering how far up the society ladder I will climb once I become Mrs Hummingbird.
“Good afternoon,” I reply and sit down beside Horatio Beetle, now twenty-six years old, dashingly handsome and still a nasty little boy. He is watching me playfully.
“You interest me, Boo Boo.” He wants to play games with me. “Your eyes are mischievous, trying to bewitch me. I am, as you may have heard, a heart-breaker. I leave a trail of weeping women in my wake. Much like Lord Byron, I am mad, bad and dangerous to know.”
“What a fucking pile of shit,” I say and remove my butterfly blades from my boots. “You’re an ignorant child and I am going to teach you a lesson in manners to women.”
I slice off his mother’s head first and fling it aside. He has defecated himself like an animal and is crawling away from me screaming. I throw both blades, which land in his eyes, impaling him to the ground. I then cut off his head and fling it in the pond.