Some kilometers away, deep into the suburbs of the crystal city, Betty was very worried for her niece’s delay, but it was still half past 9 and maybe she had had some mishap along the way. She hadn’t returned her calls but this was no rare occurrence. Most of all she was a little sad to see Cass’ which was quite disappointed her sister still hadn’t shown up, and they had had to consume the dinner just the two of them, as always. This and other thoughts agitated her mind until they were all broken by the sound of her tablet’s ringtone.

It was a video call from a number she’d never seen before. She was close to decline but soon she thought of Selena and wondered if she was reaching her from someone else’s phone. And she was not wrong. Although the light was not very good and the definition fading, the thing that appeared when she answered the call was the face of her niece.
“Selena! Is that you! Oh my God, I was quite worried! Where are you? It’s late.”
Alfred was doing his best to translate the sound waves produced by the theater-sized mouth of the giantess into a comprehensible tone to be transmitted by the web call service, but still the voice was a bit distorted.
“Yeah aunt Betty, it’s me. It’s Selena.” Alfred was also doing his best to keep the camera pointed at just Selena’s face.
“Things got a little complicated for me ... And we have very few time, so please, listen carefully.”

In the while of these words Cass had commanded her wheelchair to bring her to the table next to where her aunt was sitting and finally appeared on the screen. The problem was that the screen was in front of Alfred. Selena could just hear the audio. He didn’t know what to do and panicked a little. Finally he decided to talk “Miss Selena, a girl has appeared on screen.” Selena’s heart skipped a beat.

“Cass’! Cassie, is that you? I am sorry I know you can see me, but I can’t see the screen now!” After some more moment of silence
“Yes, it’s me.” This new girl had a very pleasant voice to listen but Alfred could say there was something odd in it. Like a strange accent or something similar. A sort of almost imperceptible pause before every word. It seemed like it was kind of laborious for this girl to talk. He didn’t know what to say and he said nothing accordingly.
“Cassie! I am sorry I am late. But things didn’t go as planned. They never do. I had a problem. But we will solve this very soon. Trust me. We are going to solve everything very soon.”
Cassie was still a bit upset with her sister, but now the annoyance was leaving place to some anxiety. Her sister’s words and tone were strange.
“Selena, is there someone else with you there?” Aunt Betty asked “Is everything alright?”
Selena couldn’t hold the emotions. She looked down and saw the people on the ground waiting for her to answer. She probably had just a couple minutes left.
“Aunt Betty, Cass’, listen to me carefully and don’t interrupt. Please! I can’t explain anything now. But everything will become clear soon. I am outside the city, and I can’t come home right now. I need you to reach me here. Please, don’t worry for me. I am completely fine. I just need you to trust me and get in the car. Don’t bring anyone, please. I really need for you two to be alone. We have to talk. It’s extremely important that you follow my instruction.”
Even if she had recommended them to not interrupt aunt Betty could not held herself “But Selena … I don’t understand … what’s happening. Where are you?”
Selena thought about it. She couldn’t ask her aunt to drive up to the landfill. She needed a place outside the city which they all knew but which was possibly as deserted as possible by that time.
“Aunt Betty, listen to me. I’ll answer all your question. But I need you two to get in the car immediately and reach me … reach me, where the butterflies hide. Please, you will have to trust me with this. I love you.”

Betty was extremely confused by that call and she could not believe her niece when she said everything was fine. Nothing seemed to be fine. It was all strange. She had heard some man’s voice during the call addressing Selena, and then this request to jump in the car in the middle of the night to reach the outskirt of the city. The only thing she understood was the last. The place where the butterflies hide.

When Selena’s and Cassie’s mom had to do the longer sessions of chemotherapy, she asked her to care for the children. Therefore she used to take them from school, bring them some sandwich and candies and drive outside the city. Usually they went for the lake but once she decided to go in the opposite direction and stopped when they reached some hills.

Once, they were walking when a discussion erupted between her and Selena. She was thirteen at the time and she wanted to reach her school friends. But Betty didn’t want the sisters to be separated in that moment. “It’s an occasion for the three of us to walk a bit in the nature. The city is so boring and so grey. We may even catch some butterflies!” To those last words Cassandra had erupted in joy to the vague idea of catching a butterfly and maybe keep it as a pet.

Cassandra’s joy got on Selena’s nerve though and she exploded “It’s bullshit! Just bullshit! We are here because mom is at the hospital again! She is sick and you won’t even make us stay with her! I hate this, I hate being here and I hate you!” That said the girl ran away in tears. Betty wanted to chase her but she was holding Cassandra by the hand.
The child in turn asked worried “Where’s Sillie going? Why she angry”

Betty didn’t know how to answer. Her Heart was shattered. Selena was who knows where, Cassie was on the brink of tears and the love of her life was battling the worst curse someone could figure in the form of a disease alone, in a hospital room because she didn’t want to look weak or perishing in front of her lover. Before Cassandra could explode in tears, Betty knelt down in front of her and dried her face.
“Selena is angry because … look -she pointed at the grass – there’s no butterflies here!” Cassie looked around, the sun of the early afternoon illuminated the hills and meadows.
“They hiding! The butterflies are hiding!”
“Yeah, they are hiding, dear! They are shy creatures. And Selena went looking for them. She is looking for the place where the butterflies hide.”

Later that afternoon the woman and the child reached an area where other families were doing pic-nic or just laying on the ground. She started talking with a mother of three which had fallen in love with Cassandra and kept cuddling her. She asked this woman the favor to keep the child for some time while she went looking for her lost niece.

She ventured in the small wood and after a couple minutes she reached a bench were a lonely girl was sitting. She sat on the bench too. Betty could clearly see from Selena’s face that the girl had already cried all the tears her body could produce and maybe more. She didn’t even look sad anymore, she looked exhausted. She moved to console her but was interrupted.

“I am sorry, aunt Betty. I am really sorry. I don’t hate you. I won’t ever. It’s just … it’s overwhelming. How can you be so calm? How can you accept all this?”
Betty remained silent and looked at her own hands squeezing her knees. “I … I can’t.”
Selena turned her head in surprise for that answer. The surprise doubled in intensity when she saw her aunt was crying.
“I … I can’t accept it.” She dried her eyes. “It’s like you said. It’s overwhelming. I think about it every day, every moment. I keep saying to myself I’d give everything twice if I could take her place. If I could be the one to undergo all this.” She paused.

Selena’s brain was suffering a failure. Nobody had ever opened up in front of her like that, it was even stranger that an adult was doing it. She had lost the capacity to pronounce words.
“But I can’t change it either. I can’t. For as much as I try, I hope … I prey! It doesn’t change anything. I just keep repeating you and Cass’ need me, and I need to be strong and to look calm in order for you not to suffer. But I know … I know that you suffer. I can see it. And it trashes my heart, it shatters me. And I don’t know what to do. I … just do it. I do it, and I hope I am doing my best. At least, this is the best I can think of.”

Betty put her hand on her niece’s and the girl jumped to hug her. They squeezed each other and cried together for a good while. No witness was there to see the scene but the most he could have said was to consider how silently all the pain in the world could be expressed. After a good measure of time, finally the two women detached. It was Selena to speak first.
“Where is Cassie?”
“She is with a woman we met at the pic-nic area.”
“Oh! Did she asked where I was?”
“Eheh! Of course, I told her you were looking for butterflies. You were looking for the place the butterflies hide!” She mimicked the mystery voice she had used with her younger niece. Selena smiled a little and used her arm to dry her face.
“We should reach her” she suggested.
“Yeah … yeah, we should!” Betty agreed.

They both stood up and started walking back to the pic-nic area along the trail. Betty looked one last time at the solitary bench in the wood. They were already some yards away, but she could still distinguish some moving spot of colors chaotically flying through air on the grass right behind the bench. They were butterflies, of course, finally exiting their hiding place to cleanse the world a little from all the pain. They didn’t came back to that place for a while.

Selena and Cassie’s mom died that same winter. Everything got very hard soon after. But two years later they finally casually strolled in the same area, and both the aunt and the niece recognized the place. They introduced Cassandra to their secret spot. And it became a tradition to visit that sacred bench once or twice a year. They rarely ever saw butterflies in the area, but none of them ever thought of changing the place’s name. Now, it was a must-visit every time Selena was back in town.

When the phone call ended, Missy reached the center of the concrete platform on which they were filming the incoming interview of the century. Only in that moment she realized something completely trivial and still fundamental. She hadn’t thought of any specific question. She was an on field reporter. The last time she had recorded an interview it was for her college journal and it was more or less kind of staged since it was an interview to the dean in order to advertise the new sport programs.

Not that she had never manages something similar. She usually always had some question for the people she found preparing her services, but this was something different. Something more akin to a first contact with another species than a series of spare question to casual bystanders in the site of a disaster, an important arrest or such stuff. And still, Alfred was almost ready with the setting.

He was giving the giantess the last instructions on tone and posture. He seemed very professional in such an incredible situation. A situation he had opposed with every cell of his body and still he was there to help her. Missy had always appreciated the sheer faithfulness and professionalism her colleague had shown for so many years. And never before it had been so comforting like in that moment.

“So, are you ready? Eric said we have ninety seconds left before the news channel leaves us the stage. They also said if this is a joke or something they have already alerted their lawyers.”
Missy smiled. News24 producers were trying to sound menacing, but they clearly ignored how disproportionately misguided they were. That was no joke at all.
“Oh, yes ... I even found this picture editing program that will be very helpful.”
“What for?” Missy asked exiting her trance.
“Oh, it’s a neural network software that automatically censors images. I mean, we are dealing with something above humans here, but still those bodies are all too humans and … nature, for the evening audience.”
Missy was surprised. Were they justified to treat such things as if they were humans. And still, Selena had shown to be nothing else but a nice lady with sincere concerns both for her family and the city as well. Not even mentioning the availability to concede the interview. She deserved to be treated as a human in a peculiar condition. For what was worth the consideration, she had proven being more humane that most people Missy knew in the city.
“Thank you, Alf, you always manage to figure it out.” Alfred was caught a little off guard by the unusual sincerity of those words.
“Well … you know, that’s why I couldn’t let you go just with Eric!” He tried to joke. Missy kept looking at him in the eyes. The silence lasted another few seconds between them.
“They are ready, we have fifteen seconds left!” Eric shouted in their headphones. From his position a couple thousand feet above the ground he had all the motives to feel impatient. Missy was shaking. Alfred put a hand on her shoulders. She winced.
“Hey, you’re going to be great!” He said convincingly.
“How do you know it?”
“Because I trust you. You are a great reporter. You’ve always been!” Missy held her microphone as tight as she could, to the point the plastic screeched a little. Alfred walked back to reach his desk. He was stopped by Missy’s arms which hugged him from behind. They remained still for a fairly long time. Missy had entered that hug with the intention to communicate all her thankfulness through that gesture. Yet she felt like her body was more on the side of asking rather than on that of giving. She wanted to thank Alfred. Her body wanted him? She couldn't make her feelings any clearer, when she was interrupted.
“The … the interview …” Alfred was saying.
“Oh right!” Missy exclaimed. She set her hair one final time and the last thing she heard was Eric’s countdown.