Stacy--Part Three

Splog # 9

Three

   The butterfly flew straight to a tall wide tree and lighted on the bark. Stacy could just see a small white dot on the rough red-brown skin. She watched and waited for the butterfly to rise from the tree and disappear. She started counting under her breath to see how long the butterfly would stay in one place. Arriving at thirty, she decided that if it hadn't moved by the time she reached one hundred, she would approach it again. She tried not to rush her count but, by the time she got to eighty, she was practically holding her breath in hopes that the butterfly would remain. As soon as she hit one hundred, she put her foot up on the wall to go over it. The moment her foot touched the surface of the rocks, the butterfly lifted off the tree and once again moved in her direction. She paused to see what would happen and, during her pause, the butterfly turned and headed deeper into the forest. Without making a conscious decision, she jumped over the wall and started walking swiftly, trying to keep the butterfly in sight. The trees weren't very dense; there was space to move easily among them. The butterfly floated lazily along, never getting too far away for her to notice the bright white flashing in the shade. Stacy had to look down every once in a while to make sure she didn't lose her footing on the uneven ground. There were stones and clumps of weeds and occasional flowers but mostly just soil and leaves. She always looked back up quickly to find the butterfly and she soon realized that, much to her surprise, the butterfly was always clearly in sight so that she had no trouble following it. After ten or fifteen minutes, the butterfly came to rest atop a large rock, one of many scattered about in a clearing.  It looked as if giants had once tried to build something and left the construction unfinished. Or maybe as if a hill of boulders had tumbled apart.