Delicate Butterfly Wings

A Queen Ager Memory

Ginger gazed down at the small cedar elephant resting in her palm. Its weight was almost imperceptible, yet somehow anchoring. Rain tapped gently against her skin like forgotten Morse code.

She traced the delicate butterfly wing ears with her fingertip. The carving seemed to warm beneath her touch.

And then ~ movement.

The tiny ears fluttered, no longer wood but alive. A peculiar lightness overtook her body. She was floating, her consciousness lifting above herself like morning mist rising from water.

Below, she could see her own physical form, still and silent standing next to Otis at The Crooked House. The elephant carving glowed with a soft amber light in her motionless hand. They were statues.

The world dissolved. Then replaced by the familiar shoreline of Starlight Cove. Salt air filled her senses. The apothecary shop dark on that rainy night. Exactly as it had appeared fourty five years ago. The night Edward disappeared.

The memory shifted, fragmented…

Edward stood on the beach, tall and serious, his dark hair ruffled by salty winds. His hands, always stained with curious substances, tinctures and powders from his hidden workshop. Edward, who spoke of transmutation and ancient knowledge in hushed, reverent tones. Edward, who promised her mysteries beyond imagining.

"I've discovered something, Gin," his voice echoed, though his lips weren't moving. "Something that changes everything we thought we knew. There are people.."

And then the memory shifted again…

The workshop door, always locked, standing ajar. Papers scattered like fallen leaves. The small glass vials shattered across the floor. Iridescent liquid seeped into the floorboards. The smell of cedar and something else. Something ancient and unknowable.

No note. No explanation. Just absence where Edward had been.

The search parties. The whispers. The pitying glances from townsfolk who believed he'd simply abandoned her. Only Ginger knew better. Only she witnessed the fear in his eyes. Only she had noticed the strange symbols appearing on their doorstep, carved into the sand outside their cottage.

The elephant's wings beat faster. Ginger now being pulled back, through time and space, back to her body, back to the present. As the day solidified around her, tears streaked her cheeks, the pain as fresh as thr first morning of his absence.

The carving was still again, innocent in her palm, but the message was clear. Edward hadn't just vanished. He'd been taken.

This dear little carving awoke a long buried memory. One too painful to ignore.

"Otis," she whispered. "I know why we need to find who made this carving. It's about Edward."

At that exact moment, the doors of The Crooked House before them creaked open.

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The Boardwalk The story where Ginger & Otis find the carving.