Free As the Earth Turns Silver by Alison Wong Page A

moved, and had never unpacked it. She opened the newspaper-wrapped parcels one by one – four framed butterflies that had once hung in the parlour. She had forgotten their names. All except the Doxocopa cherubina. She turned each frame over, opened the back, unpinned the butterflies and laid them on the bed. They were beautiful lying on the white bedspread. They made her feel very sad.
    She went to the window, pushed it up as far as it would go. The wind blew the lace curtains, her hair, across her face. Even rolled up, the wooden blind banged against the window frame. She pushed the curtains aside, took a deep cold breath and walked back to the bed. The butterflies had scattered like the petals of dying flowers. She picked them up and, taking care not to touch their wings, carried them to the window. Watched them fly. Wildly. Without thought or fear. Her hair, lace flew about her and she did not see where the wind took them or where they fell.
    She closed the window and went back to the box. There was just one thing left.
    She wiped her hand over the leather. Every week she had passed a cloth over it in the bookcase, but she had touched it only once, months after Donald’s death, when she had packed it to move. Now she sat on the bed, laid the book on her lap. Fingered the gold lettering, the dirty shine of its gilt-edged pages.
    She opened it and stared at the columns of words, pushed her thumb into the bottom right-hand corner, lifted and turned another wad of pages. Frowned.
    Here and there whole entries – words, their various meanings and derivations – had been obliterated with black ink. Why? Why some words and not others? She turned back in the book, searching for a link. Why, for instance, was Enascent intact, and Enate , but not the word in between?
    Who had done this? Not Donald, surely. The dictionary had been his sacred text, and he the high priest. When he was alive she had almost been afraid to pass the cloth over its surfaces.
    Suddenly, she laughed. Covered her mouth. She held the dictionary to her chest and shook with silent laughter. There was only one person clever enough to remember all those words. Words stored up from years of dinnertime interrogations and then obliterated in one fell swoop.
    Katherine wiped tears from her eyes, stood up and carried the dictionary downstairs to the kitchen. Tore out pages, scrunched them and placed them in the range. Lit a match. She tore out more and fed the flames, which flared with such intensity, consuming his words. Her face, fingers, the front of her body felt hot, golden light reflecting on her skin, all around a great halo of heat. She added twigs, thin branches, a small log, and still she fed the flames, watching pages wrinkle and burn, turn thick with heat into old brown cloth, grey velvet. She stirred dark fragments – words, thoughts, memories – their edges of fire falling into ash, till she held nothing but the leather cover, its sad, empty spine. She did not want to smell the animal burning, to see its poor skin blacken and curl.
    She carried it outside and dug under the rata, leaves swirling about her. Placed the leather in the damp earth and covered it again, tamping down with the spade. When flowers fell at the end of summer, they would mix red with the earth, with the poor animal soul, its dead skin. She would buy a new dictionary. Something without Donald’s history. A gift to herself. She would place it on the bookshelf in her parlour.
    She went back into the house. The children were coming down the stairs. She put her hands on their warm cheeks and kissed their foreheads. ‘Mum!’ Robbie complained, but he did not pull away. ‘Your hands are cold!’ Edie said. ‘What have you been doing?’ She looked out towards the back garden.
    Katherine smiled. She asked Edie to start the porridge, Robbie to set the table, walked up the stairs to her room.
    She put on a bright blue dress, the first time since