The Butterfly Garden (The Collector, #1)

by Dot Hutchison

“I’m called Lyonette,” she said when I’d looked my fill and given my attention back to the water. “Don’t bother telling me your name because I won’t be able to use it. Best to forget it, if you can.” “Where are we?” “The Garden.”

“Why do you mark us?” “Because a garden must have its butterflies.”

“It wasn’t all at once,” the girl tells him, following his eyes to the pattern. “He started with the outlines. Then he went back in over the course of two weeks to add in all the color and detail. And when it was done, there I was, just another one of the Butterflies in his Garden. God creating his own little world.”

I should have recognized the desperation in her voice, the edge to her words, but that was something else the Garden numbed you to. Like beauty, desperation and fear were as common as breathing.