Category: Mystery/Suspense Publisher: Big Red Press
ISBN-10: 061553693X
Type: Fiction
Pages: 334
Copyright: 2011
ISBN-13: 9780615536934
Butterfly Season is a riveting story that will have you hooked from the first chapter to the last word.
BUTTERFLY SEASON takes Lila Dean to the edge of madness and back as she learns to deal with tremendous loss and overwhelming fear in order to protect her daughter Olivia, whose extraordinary gift not only seals her destiny, but changes the lives of the people of Freedom, Texas forever.
Excerpt
Chapter One
Two windows, four walls. Nothing more, nothing less. If she hadn't already stepped off the edge of the world where she hung precariously by cracked and bleeding fingers, she would surely have been driven mad by the never-ending sameness of the tiny room where she sat almost hopeless and not quite helpless as her daughter dreamed her troubled dreams on the bed across the way.
She gritted her teeth and dug in her nails as she held on to the small spark of sanity left to her as she waited and watched for the approach of Death, who would pound, heavy-fisted upon the door, demanding she step aside so he could claim what was his.
Dog heard the approaching footsteps before she did and rose in one fluid motion despite his advanced age, teeth bared, a rumble emerging from deep within his heavy chest. And the woman-child was awake immediately; crossing the room to stand at her mother's side as they listened to the hornet-buzz of angry voices drawing closer ever closer.
The woman began to tremble and the girl bent to place a soft, reassuring kiss against her too-hot cheek. Thy will, she thought as she took a deep breath and braced herself for the inevitable. Thy will.
Mother and daughter jumped as the door burst open under the force of a heavy blow. A voice echoed down through the years, desperate to save the child it had not been able to protect in the past. Lila recognized it at once as it circled her head and breathed excitedly into her ear. Mama.
"Run, Olivia," she shouted. The child started, hesitated as fear and acceptance battled for control of her emotions. "Run," her mother commanded a second time and she turned to the window, seeming to float through it with Dog following closely at her heels.
"The field," someone shouted and they moved as one to follow the barefoot girl as she fled.
Lila stepped through the shattered remnants of the front door into the surreal world of the yard full of men and guns and drifting early morning fog as the first shotgun blast filled the air and the acrid smell of gunpowder invaded her nostrils. She turned and watched in disbelief as Dog, who had hurled himself at Olivia, sending her to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs and too-white nightgown, whirled in mid-air, yelped once, then crumpled to the waiting earth. She heard Olivia's cry, watched as she crawled to the animal's side and pulled his big head onto her lap. She tried to call out, to tell the girl to get up, to go, just go, but no sound emerged from between her suddenly cold, dry lips.
For a moment, no one moved, then Olivia rose slowly to her feet, holding out her bloodied hands to the watching men. And then they shot her, shot her, shot her and her body twirled and tumbled before she fell, arms outstretched, into the tangle of wild rose bushes growing along the fence. Then silence.
Lila ran then, unheeding of the men with their smoking guns, unaware of everything but her dying daughter, who needed her––needed her. Olivia's dark eyes opened as her mother cradled her in arms that had not been strong enough to keep her safe and lowered her gently to the ground. "Mama," she whispered, then she was nothing.
Throwing back her head, Lila howled like a wild thing as madness reached out to claim her forever and ever, amen . . .
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