'Yes, the garden's coming along well, but the seasons are all skew-whiff these days,' she laughed into the phone. 'Last summer with all that rain – remember the slugs and snails everywhere? And this May it was weird, with all those bright yellow caterpillars. Never seen anything like it. Should make for a beautiful butterfly summer.'
It was when she switched off the phone that the first butterfly landed on her, its wings intricately patterned with bronze and deep orange and rich purple. She was quite charmed by the confidence with which it sat on her sleeve, but then more came towards her, zig-zagging as butterflies will, but with an odd determination. They settled on her so thickly that her screams were quite muffled. When they left her face, nothing was left but white skull, flecked here and there with shining pink fragments of cartilage.
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