Tracy's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Tracy had walked the same path through Fern Gully every morning for two years, and she planned to walk it again today, even though the boy she could not stop thinking about lived in the other direction. She was twenty-three, blonde, quiet, and practiced at looking busy so strangers would not speak to her. She wanted to win him. She had no idea how to start. She had seen him once at a harvest party. He walked in and the room went still around her. She stayed against the wall with a cup of cider she did not drink. She told herself later it was the noise, the crowd, bad timing. She had told herself the same lie once before, about someone else, and lost him. She did not want to lose again. She still did nothing about it. Her route curved past the bakery, the footbridge, and the long fence where nothing ever happened. That was the point. Nothing ever happened, and nothing ever had to be said. She could go a whole week and speak only to the woman who sold her bread. Today a red butterfly landed on her wrist. She stopped. Another landed on her sleeve. A third settled in her hair. She did not brush them away. She followed the small orange flickers off the path, through the ferns, toward the hum. The hum came from white boxes stacked in a clearing. A tall young man knelt beside one, lifting a frame heavy with comb. Pollen dusted his linen shirt. Butterflies rode his forearms like he had grown them there. He was the boy from the party. He looked up. "Sorry. They like new people. I can't really stop them." Tracy's throat closed. She had rehearsed nothing for this. She held out her wrist and the butterfly stayed. "You're bleeding," she said. He glanced at the scrape on his knuckle. "Oh. Bee got confused." He smiled at her like he had known her a long time. "I'm John." "Tracy." It came out before she could stop it. Her own name, given to a stranger, in the open air. The wall she stood against every day was gone. There was no cup in her hand and no crowd to hide inside. "Tracy," he repeated, testing it. "You live down the path?" "I walk it." "Walk it tomorrow," he said. "I'll be here. I could use help with the frames if you're not squeamish." She nodded before she thought about it. He went back to the comb. The butterflies lifted off her one by one and drifted toward him. She walked home the long way, the wrong way, past his hives instead of the fence. Her quiet route was broken. She had spoken first. She had said yes to tomorrow. Now she had to come back, and she had no plan for what a person like her did once a door like this opened.