“See, I…I’ve been having these terrible dreams lately.”
“Terrible dreams, you say?”
That day, the one pouring out their troubles to Carredura was a man named Willie. He was somewhere in his early twenties, probably a few years out of school. He was a clerk who stayed very, very busy at work.
Indeed, Carredura had spotted him on a dark road late one weeknight. Willie had been plodding home, a vacant look in his eyes. When she asked him what was going on, he told her, “A long time ago, I…I did something heinous to a girl in my class. It still haunts me in my dreams, even now…”
“What did you do that was so awful?” Carredura asked, as if prepared to hear his confession.
Willie sighed, and after a moment, he said, “I was part of a group that bullied her.”
“Goodness.”
“The truth is, I didn’t have anything against her. My friends told me to do it…”
“What happened to this girl?”
Another pause. “She stopped coming to school.”
“Goodness…” Carredura placed her hands over her mouth in a gesture of shock. Not that she was really shocked. It was a mundane tale of misfortune. You could hear the like anywhere.
“I’ve always wished I could apologize to her. I still think of her sometimes, even now that I’m not in school anymore. Maybe that’s…maybe that’s why work hasn’t been going so well for me.”
Then he launched into what could only be described as a classic case of griping about his job.
He told Carredura all about his troubles: The pay was bad. The company didn’t even give overtime. He wasn’t friends with anyone at his office. He had so much work it kept him long into the night, and there was no one to help. Nor did he have anyone to whom he could unburden himself about these woes.
The women at his office didn’t like him. He tried to be friendly like he had with the girls in school, but they assumed he was getting funny ideas and kept their distance from him.
His boss didn’t trust him, either—because Willie’s isolated status in the workplace made it look like he refused to communicate with his coworkers.
It was the polar opposite of his wonderful life as a student. He had no friends, no partner, no money. Only pain, only staying at the office until well after dark and then dragging himself home through the night. The very fact that his student days had been so fulfilling only made the reality weigh heavier.
“Oh, you poor thing,” Carredura said. In point of fact, she felt no pity for him at all, but nonetheless, she reached out to Willie. “I see that you’re trapped by your past, unable to move forward. Your past is a stake that casts a dark shadow into your present days.”
“Yes… Maybe you’re right,” Willie mumbled.
Carredura said gently, “If you like, I would be happy to sell you a sancta that will change everything for you.”
Willie looked up slowly.
Carredura took out a sancta. “Just use this, and your life will be completely different.”
That night, he dreamed again.
“Please—go out with me!”
A student, a young woman, stood in front of Willie, looking like she didn’t know what to say. “M-me? Are you sure?”
Her name was Luna.
She was always reading a book in a corner of the classroom, ashamed and alone. A plain girl who didn’t seem to be close to any of the other young women. Once in a while she and Willie would talk in the library, but they couldn’t really have been called friends. They just were what they were.
“Are you sure you want…someone like me?” Luna looked at Willie, genuinely uncertain.
He shook his head. “I don’t want someone like you. I want you.”
He looked so sincere, no one would ever have guessed that he was joking. Certainly not Luna, who nodded back. “Y-you know, I…I f-feel the same w—”
The words didn’t make it out of her mouth before water drenched her from overhead.
It wasn’t rain. It was a bucket, overturned right over her and soaking her from head to toe.
This was no coincidence. Luna looked up to see several of the other girls leering down at her, holding the empty bucket.
“What?” She stood there, stupefied, unable to comprehend what was happening. Why was she all wet? Why were there other students above her, laughing? And why were they going over to Willie? It didn’t make sense to her, and they could see it on her face.
“You deserve an award for that performance!” somebody said.
“‘I don’t want someone like you. I want you’! You sure laid it on thick for a little dare!”
Somebody else turned to Luna and grinned.
A dare?
“Ha-ha-ha! What? You seriously thought someone would want to go out with you?” one of the students said.
“Maybe if you weren’t such an ugly bitch!”
The drenching was bad enough. Now the other girls rained abuse down on Luna.
Willie thought he might have heard Luna whisper, “But…Willie?”
Spending time with his friends was fun. What was fun for his friends was fun for him. He didn’t personally have anything against Luna—but drawn in by the laughter of the people around him, Willie laughed, too.
He laughed, and he was careful not to look at Luna as her eyes filled with despair.
Willie opened his eyes to find himself in bed, as always.
And, as always, he felt awful. He sat up and looked at the bedside table.
It turned out that one thing hadn’t been a dream: the events of the night before. The conversation with the strange woman he’d met by the roadside.
“This is a sancta called the Memory-Guiding Specimen,” the woman who called herself Carredura had said, placing it into Willie’s hands.
It was a preserved butterfly specimen.
“You need only call to mind the person you wish to meet and pull out the pin. The butterfly will take flight and guide you to where you must go.”
What he did after that, she told him, was his choice.
She had brushed his fingers: I pray this will bring you the right outcome.
Her touch was cold.
Willie looked at his hands, remembering the feeling. Then he reached for the nightstand. The butterfly was there.
“Luna…,” he said.
He had replayed his actions in his head so many times, regretting them each time. He had never meant to hurt her. Now that he was in her place, isolated and alone, he saw how wrong he had been to do what he did.
After Luna stopped coming to school, and then after Willie grew up, he found himself thinking of her often. They hadn’t been close; they just ran into each other at the library and chatted a little sometimes. But when he thought back on it, he found himself thinking that maybe those moments when he’d been with Luna had been even more comfortable than the times when he was laughing with his friends.
“Oh, hi, Willie. Back again today?”
Luna was on the library committee, and he usually found her sitting behind the counter, where she would smile at him. He’d never seen her talk to anyone in class, so at first he wasn’t sure how to react, but Willie came often enough that they naturally struck up some conversation.
“That’s a great book, right? It’s one of my favorites.”
They shared interests, so sometimes they talked about their books. But never did they talk where anyone else could see or hear them.
For whenever Willie saw Luna at the library, she always had a dark expression on her face. Her belongings were always covered with graffiti someone had scrawled on them. Her clothes always had smudges or dirt somewhere. She was from a poor family, he heard. She always looked grim, and she was kind of gross. That was why nobody liked her.
“Her? She’s, like, weird and gross, right?”
One of his friends had slapped him on the back once, looking for Willie to confirm his assessment. So Willie nodded mutely.
Because it was more important to him to keep spending time with his friends.
“Willie…?”
It wasn’t until Luna left school that he realized he had begun to care for her.
Now, he held the specimen in his hand.
What was she doing now? Was she unhappy because of him?
“I’ve got to apologize…”
Willie pulled the pin out of the butterfly.
He had to, so he could undo his mistakes of the past.
So that he could move forward, even if just a little.
“It hurts… It hurts so much… Someone, help me,” Luna murmured as she sat on the bed, covering her face with her hands. A book lay beside her. It was tattered and old, written and overwritten so many times that it was impossible to tell what the words had once said. “Why me? Why do I always have to suffer?”
She wished someone would help her.
She wished someone would reach out to her.
She poured out the feelings that overflowed from her heart, repeating the same thing time and time again.
Just like the endless repetition of her days.
She was silent. Her chest hurt.
It hurt. It hurt so much.
The same words, again.
Yet still the sun rose, as it did every day. Luna looked out the window as sunlight filtered through it, and stood up.
“All right…” She let out a deep sigh.
She brushed the tears away and got ready to go out.
Then she left the house, looking at the ground, like she always did. Careful not to meet anyone’s eyes—praying that no one would see her.
On the bright, broad avenue on her way to work, Luna had a thought.
Something felt different about today.
The town looked the same as it always did. The people passing by, too. But something was definitely different.
It felt just like it had several years ago.
That day, she’d had the distinct sense that something was going to change—and it did. Her life had taken a dramatic turn.
“I want you.”
To this day, she could picture him saying the words.
“I’ve got to hurry!” Luna looked up, her heart racing, and hurried off.
She had the sense that today was going to be a very good day.