They say, “Only in dreams men are truly free,
What does a butterfly dream about? — It’s already free!”

~SCHOLASTICUS K~

I chew on the ends of my hair furiously. Danger? Answers? Questions? Why is Grammy Claire talking in riddles!

My stomach starts to hurt, but maybe I’m just hungry. The smell of bacon spirals up to the second landing. Madame See must be finally cooking, or maybe I finally noticed that I need food.

I hold the photograph album tight to my chest, lock up Grammy Claire’s bedroom as fast as possible, and race back to my own room.

Sweat dribbles down my forehead as I scan the room, wondering where I can hide the album. Not that I really need to; the album’s purpose was just to hide the new letter. Still, I stuff it into the lining of my suitcase and zip it up and stash it in the closet.

Danger. What kind of danger? Like getting hurt danger? My stomach clenches up even more.

I hear a door slam next to mine and Riley comes out of the bathroom, her feet stomping. I’d recognize her footsteps anywhere. I guess everybody slept in this morning. Sleeping in Grammy Claire’s bed was the best night’s sleep I’ve had since she died.

I think about Butler Reginald and Madame See, who just traveled about ten thousand miles to help us while Mamma’s locked away in the South Wing. They’re probably jet-lagged bad. It’s tempting to crawl back into bed myself, but I’m so hungry, I could eat my arm.

Rubbing the toes of my right foot against my left leg, I feel stuck. Too many things to do, too many things to think about.

Shower first. Get rid of the sticky sweat. Clothes. Breakfast.

Then Key Number Five.

Fast as I can, I dig out the keys from under the mattress, stick them in the box, then hide the box inside the clean clothes I take with me to the shower. I feel better having them with me. Someone is lurking out there, watching and waiting.

Somebody tried to force Grammy Claire’s bedroom door open. For all I know, they succeeded and locked the door again behind them. Maybe there’s stuff missing that I don’t even know about! The room is pretty empty. But whoever it was did not find the package hidden under the bed. The space underneath is pretty narrow and low. I’ll bet I’m the only one who could slide under. Even Riley’s probably too big.

’Course, that tells me absolutely nothing. Just more puzzles.

While I wait for the water to get warm, I light another match and burn the second folded-up note. Then I run water in the sink to cool off the ashes and flush them down the toilet again. After putting the box of keys inside a towel, I place it on the ledge of the tub so I can see it.

As I shampoo my hair, I frown at the lumpy towel. There is no way I can carry the box with me all the time. I’ll have to memorize the shape and color of each key as well as their numbers, and keep them in my pockets when I go out. After I’m dressed I leave the empty box underneath my stack of underwear while I run down for breakfast.

Butler Reginald has already eaten and is outside washing the car. A lawn mower stands ready, oil and gas cans on the ground.

I catch a glimpse of Madame See through the swinging doors, squirting soap into the sink. The smell of fried food hangs on the air and the radio is squawking some talk show. I wonder if she understands much English. As if in answer to my unspoken question, she turns the station to classical music just as a pan clatters to the floor.

“Think we’re supposed to do dishes and chores?” I ask Riley as I enter the dining room.

My sister is eating bacon with her fingers and pouring Tabasco sauce on a pile of scrambled eggs.

“Don’t know,” Riley tells me with her mouth full. My sister is not one of those girls who eats lettuce three times a day and reads diet magazines. She burns food off fast. High metabolism. “No one’s said anything about a chore list, but isn’t that why we have a cook and a butler?”

“It’s strange to be here without Grammy Claire,” I say, feeling guilty that I’m stuffing my mouth so fast, too. Madame See also made pain perdu, my favorite. Thick pieces of French bread fried in oil. And a big pitcher of warm cane syrup. I pour a big puddle and start dipping squares with my fork. I can’t believe Grammy Claire left Madame See a menu and shopping list like she’s leaving me those letters. But I’m not surprised.

My grammy was very organized. Maybe I take after her. I wish I could ask her how she suppressed the urge to comb carpet fringe. Thank goodness most of this house has hardwood floors. And thick bath carpet without any fringe at all.

“I’m bored already,” Riley says, yawning. “Bayou Bridge has absolutely nothing to do, but out here, there’s really nothing to do. Maybe I’ll steal Reginald’s Town Car and cruise into the nearest village. ’Course, Lafayette’s only a couple hours. I could go to the mall.”

“Butler Reginald ain’t gonna let you go shopping all day with his car.”

“But if Grammy Claire’s estate is paying for that car, I have privileges,” Riley says, lifting her eyebrows meaningfully.

“How you gonna buy anything?”

“Mamma gave me her credit card for emergencies.”

I stop chewing. “So you were gonna go to California with that credit card and leave me with nothing?”

“You’re only twelve; you don’t need anything. And besides, you got household staff.”

“You’re so selfish.”

“And you got letters from Grammy Claire in that antique box.”

I drop my fork. My sister sounds jealous. “You mean the box in my — ?”

“The one and only.” Riley stands up and scrapes back her chair.

“You went snooping in my room?”

“Just looking for my earphones.”

“I don’t have your earphones — and stay out of my room!”

“Fine,” she says airily, like she couldn’t care less.

I grab a clump of my freshly washed hair and suck the last of the water. I taste apple blossoms and the tang of conditioner. Thinking about Riley barging into my bedroom and going through my things makes me want to start throwing furniture — which would practically be against my religion. Even the bit of dust on the sideboard is driving me a teensy bit crazy.

Riley sees me eyeing the furniture. “Clear the table instead, Tara.”

“It’s your mess on the table! And stay out of my room!”

She smiles, completely composed. “You already said that.”

Riley starts to leave the dining room and I touch Key Number Five in my pocket, rubbing my finger along its sharp teeth. “So Grammy Claire’s box might be worth something?”

“I always thought —” She stops. “Always thought she’d give it to me.”

With that, Riley spins on her heel and walks out.

My throat closes up. I think my sister is hiding tears. I think she’s hurt. I wonder if she wishes she was getting the notes and the keys. I haven’t even shown them to her. The letters and the keys make me feel special. I want to keep them to myself, but I know it’s selfish. Reluctantly, I remember Grammy Claire’s words: “If you need Riley’s help, know that you can trust her.”

I don’t know why she didn’t send Riley all those keys. I’m barely out of elementary school, but maybe I am supposed to trust her — maybe even confide in her. Besides, Riley has a driver’s license, and if the bad guys — whoever they are — show up, she can help us escape.

Bad guys. I can’t deny it any longer. Grammy Claire said there was danger, and she wanted me to guard the nipwisipwis with my life. But how do I guard a bunch of butterflies that come and go whenever they want? I can’t catch them or pin them down. If Grammy Claire is talking about the butterflies I’ve seen so far. But how could she know about them? Aren’t the butterflies just some random thing, a sign of summer? Or because I left the windows open!

Still … those words in Grammy Claire’s letter wondering if I’d see Angelina, her Giant Pink…. My grandmother personally knew the butterfly I saw an hour ago.

“Hey, Riley,” I call out, jumping up from the table.

“What? I got stuff to do.”

“Will you come with me?”

Her bangs hide her brown eyes this morning. She’d forgotten to gel them into black and blue spikes. “What do you want now?”

I glance at the kitchen door where Madame See sits at the table eating her own breakfast. She catches me looking at her and quickly covers her face with her palms, mortified. As though we’re living two hundred years ago in a castle and servants are supposed to stay out of sight by using secret passageways. When she ducks her head, her black hair falls like a sheet across her eyes. “No see, no see,” she babbles. “I do dishes. Clean up.”

We both jump as someone knocks on the back door. “Delivery!” she calls out. “Food store make house calls,” she says in her stilted accent. A cross between a Pacific Islander and somewhere else in Asia. “You go. Do fun.”

The door closes on us and the house returns to its former quiet.

“Where’s Butler Reginald?” I ask.

“He hasn’t come in yet. Later, gator.” Riley heads upstairs, probably to a day of computer games, phone calls to Brad, and earphones planted permanently in her head.

I hear the start of the lawn mower through the screens of the dining room that face the front of the house, but the rooms and hallways in the back still lie in shadows. No point in opening up three stories of blinds and curtains. Besides, it’s gonna be another scorcher.

“Riley,” I call again, pounding up the stairs after her. “Will you come with me?”

“I’m busy.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Go align some rug fringe.”

It’s beyond comprehension that one minute my sister is potentially vulnerable and hiding tears, and the next she can be just plain mean.

I start to reach for a lock of hair to chew, and then drop my hand, using every bit of willpower I have. “I’m going to open up the lock for Key Number Five.”

I’m graced by the famous Riley eye roll. “What are you talking about?”

I bring the key from my pocket and dangle it in front of her. “Upstairs. At the very top of the house. I’ll explain on the way.”

“I’m not in the mood for stupid games. I have a phone appointment with Brad.”

I experiment with my new Tara eye roll and end up feeling ridiculous. “Bo-ring.”

“Maybe to you, but not to me. I guess you gotta be older to understand.”

Jett Dupuis’s face flashes across my mind. The cutest boy in sixth grade. I think I understand better than she thinks, but Jett and I don’t make appointments or dates, we just meet up and do stuff.

“Follow me,” I tell my sister, giving her an order like I never have before.

Astonishingly enough, she obeys.

At the first landing, I run to get Grammy Claire’s letters from my bedroom.

The house is quiet, quiet, quiet, and since nobody’s around I tell Riley to read the letters quick while we walk upstairs. “But be careful, don’t drop them! And don’t lose them!”

“Sheesh! I won’t!”

I lead the way up to the third floor and then down the hallway until we get to the narrow steps that go up to the fourth floor. The walls close in together, tight and enfolding. The creaky steps are still creepy, but not as much during daylight hours — or with a companion.

“The room up here is Grammy Claire’s laboratory, isn’t it?” Riley asks. The narrow space is hot and airless. Sweat trickles like spider legs down my face. “Tara, you’re not supposed to go in there.”

“She’s — she’s — gone now. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Of course it matters. The laboratory is for the grown-ups to clean out and pack up. All that scientific stuff. Maybe they’ll donate her research to the university in Lafayette. Hey, maybe that’s why Butler Reginald is here. To clean up the house and yard and get it ready to sell.”

“Sell this house?” The thought freezes me to the floor. “But we can’t do that!”

“What are we gonna do with it? Mamma ain’t gonna take care of it. And the money will help keep up our own Civil War relic back in Bayou Bridge.”

She’s so heartless. So cold-blooded cruel. “But — but — we’re supposed to go inside first,” I tell Riley, and she gives me a peculiar look.

“Why?” she asks.

I shrug and keep climbing. My heart stutters inside my chest as I reach the thick oak door. Behind me, Riley flips the hall light and a yellowish light glows. Once again, the faint sound of music wafts through the floorboards, making me jump. “Whoa. Is that the organ?”

“Yep, all the way from the great room three stories below.”

Air wheezes through the hollow pipes, filling the house from top to bottom like a ghost.

Riley pinches my arm, trying to make me scream. “Sounds like a haunted house, huh?”

“Cut it out!” I hiss. “Look! See that note?”

We stare at the note I’d seen yesterday, the one in Grammy Claire’s handwriting.

Not yet, Tara. Not yet.

“What does that mean?” Riley demands.

“Just what it says. That I can’t go in until it’s time.”

“And is it?”

“Yep, it’s time.” I hold up Key Number Five as proof, and smile. But there’s a part of me that’s holding my breath, hoping I’m right. And an even bigger, scared-er part of me that is afraid to walk inside. But the biggest part of me — the one dying of curiosity — can’t wait to open that door. “I got the clue in the last letter.”

Riley pins her eyes on mine. I can’t tell if she believes me or not. “Where was that letter?”

“Underneath the —” I start, and then stop. I don’t want her to know Grammy Claire’s hiding places. Just in case … of what, I don’t know. But Grammy Claire is leaking the letters and notes and keys in slow dribbles, emphasizing the secrecy and danger. There must be a reason.

“Oh, sheesh, will you cut that out?”

“What?”

“You’re sucking your hair again. It’s sickening.”

Quickly, I drop the lump of hair, then wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. I don’t even realize I’m doing it anymore.

Riley lowers her voice, eyes glittering in the dim light. “You ever think that maybe Grammy Claire went a little crazy the last couple of years?”

My skin starts to crawl.

“Maybe while she was living out there on that island she got some nasty gigantic African insect bite. Made her delirious, and she hasn’t been right in the head ever since.”

“For your information, the islands of Chuuk ain’t nowhere near Africa! And Grammy Claire didn’t get bit by some crazy bug!”

“Don’t take it personally, Tara. Coming here because Grammy Claire sent you a telegram — from beyond the grave — just feels dumb. Like there’s some big secret — but there isn’t. Our grandmother went nuts with her science experiments on some island thousands of miles from civilization. That butler dude probably just wanted a free ticket back to the States, and Madame See is trying to make a buck off of us because they think we’ve got money. But you do know that the family fortune is pretty much gone, right? We might lose the house if we can’t pay the taxes and insurance, and Mamma can’t face it. The family fortune has disappeared over the years, and Daddy keeps his own cash tight in his fist and won’t help us. And did you also notice, dear stupid sister, that we didn’t stay at the Doucet Mansion, we came here — probably to help clean out this place and help them find some hidden stash of money?”

“There ain’t no hidden stash of money!”

“We know that, but they don’t. And we already got Miz Landry back home so we wouldn’t need them.”

“Sometimes I just hate you, Riley Doucet! Grammy Claire sent the letters, not them! It’s her handwriting!” Tears prick behind my eyes. “You honestly think Mamma is pretending?”

“No, Mamma does need help. But I’m tired of living in that stuffy old plantation watching her lose her mind.”

“Stop saying that!” I hate to hear it, even if I think it myself.

“Okay, I’m exaggerating a little, but Grammy Claire knew Mamma would go off the deep end again if she died so she brought us here to stay out of the way, and Butler Dude and Madame See came along for the ride and a bit of cash. We’ll probably be home by next week. Maybe we can still go to California for summer vacation.”

My fists are tight against my legs. “No way Mamma will go to California.”

Riley uses the wall for a prop as she rubs her right foot against her left leg. I feel comforted just watching her. Like I’m suddenly watching a younger version of Grammy Claire. “Maybe she’ll meet some rich director. With lots of annuities.”

“Mamma is not a gold digger!” I start to shout, then wonder if they can hear us downstairs.

“You’re so dramatic! I didn’t say she was, but sometimes a woman needs money, especially if she can’t work herself. That’s just life, Tara, face it. Our family is broken up, and with Grammy Claire gone, Mamma needs options.”

“Then I hate real life — and our family is not broken!” Angry, I brush at the tears running down my cheek. But deep in my heart I know it is broken. Daddy’s off with a new wife and his Hollywood deals, Mamma’s nursing her grief in the South Wing, and Grammy Claire, the only light I had left, is dead. So sudden, so quick. So final.

“Can I see those keys?”

“No!” I turn away, the key digging into my palm. After all the terrible things Riley just said I never want to show her anything again! “Later,” I tell her. “Right now I’m gonna look for the next clue.”

Key Number Five slips into the keyhole and the door clicks open.

Riley and I stare at each other. My ears start to drone like a bumblebee.

“You’re scared,” she tells me in a loud stage whisper.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are, I can see it in your jiggly eyes. And you want to chew on your hair so bad you’re ready to chomp a whole chunk of it.”

“You’re a brat!”

She smiles like she knows it and doesn’t care a whit. Why were big sisters ever invented?

As I turn the knob, the oak door swings inward. With the very first step inside, my eyes are drawn to the ceiling.

The room is one huge circular shape, and the ceiling is a dome of windows staring straight up at the blue sky. White clouds float past the dusty panes. Two of the windows are propped open a few inches, and three seconds later, a cluster of butterflies swoops down through the window and heads straight for us.