Ci:

Pronounced /Kai/

Derived from the Kai people of the constellation kingdoms, meaning "a thousand lost wishes."

***

Earth

Belle Village, Maine 

While catastrophe ensued in the Shifter World, a thirteen-year-old girl crouched behind a counter in the back of a science classroom, opened a mesh tank, and set two hundred butterflies free.

Who knew butterflies could create such amusing chaos?

They didn't at first, though. First, the butterflies rose in a silent wave of color...red, green, blue, and orange wings crested over the science equipment counter and brought sudden life to the stillness of the testing atmosphere. For the seven seconds after the release of the butterflies, everything was like a held breath: quiet, tense, ready for an exhale of action.

And then came the amusing chaos.

Lilly had pictured the reaction of her seventh-grade science teacher, Mrs. Siotang, for the month and a half she had been planning to set a thousand butterflies loose in the school. It was better than Lilly could have imagined. Seeing her teacher's old face contort into confusion and fury in real life was much more satisfying than the sour expressions her mind had cooked up.

Mrs. Siotang lifted a wrinkly old hand to her mouth, which did little to stifle the hawkish screech that escaped her mouth. Her eyes bulged, and Lilly feared they'd pop out of their sockets. That ugly turquoise vein in Siotang's forehead popped out.

Heads of ambitious test-takers jerked up. The fast tap-tap-tap of fingers over laptop keys stopped. Muffled squeaks of surprise mingled with the fast beat of music screaming through Lilly's earbuds as the butterflies dipped and exploded into a silent, colorful whirlwind.

It was a lovely catastrophe.

The scrape of chairs on tile, the sudden movement of bodies, the world caught in vicious snapshots of color, the flicker-flicker of wings, Mrs. Siotang howling like a tortured goose...what a way to kick off the summer! Lilly could have rocked back on her heels and laughed if she wasn't on such a strict timetable.

She had a job to do.

Making sure no one was looking at the science equipment counter, she ventured into the butterfly storm to crawl the twenty-foot stretch to the door. She braced her lips together to keep from laughing. Wings tickled her calves, neck, and hair. Lilly reached the door and cracked it open just wide enough to slither through it while still in her crouch. Lilly heard Mrs. Siotang's explosive shriek through the beat oompahing into her ears: "LILLIAN CART CI!"

Lilly shot to her feet, ripped the earbuds from her ears, and sacrificed a precious second to shoot Mrs. Siotang a wicked smile so bright, it challenged the stars. 

Then she wheeled around, slammed the door behind her, and took off down the hall at a sprint.

Butterflies trickled into the hall from the air vents. There were so many...they came first in twos and then in threes, and soon swarmed in by the twenties. They squeezed through the cracks of windows and doors, painting the boring beige walls of Eldnac Prep with vivid color: fire and ocean and amaranth and rose, colors colors colors. Everywhere was a kaleidoscope.

The hallways charged with movement and yelps of surprise. TESTING: PLEASE BE QUIET signs rattled with the opening of classroom doors. She could hear shouts from down the hall, wondrous and excited with childlike adoration:

"All these butterflies!"

"Where'd they come from?"

"Catch them—"

"Don't hurt it!"

Charging down the stairs, Lilly whirled around several corners and skidded to a halt at the giant double doors of the school office. She stuffed her earbuds into the pocket of her blazer just as the office doors swung open.

Walker Vatakai stood behind the threshold, wearing his award-winning grin. If the wicked smile Lilly had given Mrs. Siotang could have gotten the stars' attention, this one captured the sun's. It was a grin that could have lit up worlds and created butterflies itself: Wild, ferocious, happy. It was contagious.

Lilly was glad she allotted sixty seconds in her timetable to talk to him.

A blue and black butterfly crawled up the slope of Walker's shoulder; another gold one perched on the edge of his sharp nose. Walker inclined his head. "You were right. This is way more fun than taking Mrs. Siotang's science exam."

"Of course I was right. I'm always right."

Walker laughed, and the butterfly took off from his nose. "Cocky girl."

"That's me." Lilly's hands were sweating. She brushed them on her skirt. Had they really pulled this off? "Seriously, though. Thanks for doing this. I—"

"Don't thank me. Setting a thousand butterflies free through the air vents in school? Killer. Always include me in your pranks." Walker glanced over his shoulder. The office was a large round room, and if it were not for the butterflies resting atop every available surface, everything in that room would have been some awful form of beige...the desk, the bookshelf, the tiled floor, the walls.

Thank God for butterflies.

Walker continued, "I was only able to run everyone out for a few minutes with a story about bats in the walls. My mom's gonna be back to call exterminators and parents, so hurry up."

"How did you sell a story about bats in the walls?"

Walker tapped his temple as if it should have been obvious. "I made a tape recording of bats and put it behind the big bookshelf beside the desk after my mom got here this morning. Duh."

"Tape recorders?" 

"Yeah, they're these little cassettes—"

"I know what they are," Lilly replied with a laugh. "I just didn't know you were into stuff like that. Well noted." 

When Lilly had asked for his help with this prank several months ago, Walker wanted to know how to get everyone out of the office to send the butterflies through the air vents. She'd replied, "Surprise me." He truly was a splendid ally, resourceful being the headmistress's son and wildly imaginative on top of that. Walker vibrated on his own plane of whimsy.

Lilly took Walker's hand, all raised veins and coarse skin from endless track meets, and shook it before tugging him into the hall. A cluster of butterflies followed him out.

"I couldn't snag Mom's keys...she never takes them off her hip," he said. "You can't lock the door. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it." Lilly spent the last three seconds of the time she allotted to talk to him staring at his grand smile—oh, that smile—to keep in her mind forever before spinning to face the secretary's desk.

She set to work.

Lilly did not dare give herself any more than two minutes in the office: a minute and a half to look through the desk and the filing cabinet and another thirty seconds to hide. Lilly started with the desk, shuffling through papers and flinging open drawers as she counted to ninety under her breath. She opened binders and folders. She went to the Cs in the filing cabinet and found her own name. Her file was thickest in the whole drawer, filled with infractions, notes, and all the times she'd gotten detention dating all the way back to second grade.

No luck there, either. Where was it?

And then, just as Lilly moved to the vast bookshelf on the adjacent wall, she heard voices coming from outside the doors. 

Not yet, not yet, not yet. She hadn't found her journal!

Lilly wanted to scream, "Now is a terrible time to walk in, Mrs. Vatakai!" but opted for a muttered swear instead. She dropped to her stomach and squeezed beneath the secretary's desk...this took some treasured seconds, as she had to force her rather large thighs and thick torso into the incredibly small space. By the time she was fully settled into her hiding spot, her stomach and chin were pressed hard against the floor, her right hand was pressed into her side, her left arm was uncomfortably twisted in on her body, and her left hand was crushed between her chest and the floor. Her heart smashed against her ribcage. 

The doors exploded open. 

Lilly ignored the pain in her joints and watched as two sets of high heels flashed across her vision. 

"These bugs!" Headmistress Vatakai ground out through gritted teeth. Lilly also gritted her teeth, for she was not too fond of Vatakai calling these butterflies bugs. Butterflies were way cooler than bugs. "There were never any bats in the walls. I will slaughter that girl. That irritating delinquent! I should have her arrested for this! Ship her off to juvenile detention!"

Vatakai marched in front of the desk, her black stilettos inches away from Lilly's nose. "How are we supposed to get these things out of here?"

"We'll have to delay exams," replied the owner of the second pair of heels. They belonged to the old and fragile Mrs. Roach, Eldnac's main secretary. She laughed. "Can you believe it? Butterflies! What a genius! I mean...well...oh, do not give me that look, Addison. It's clever, setting a thousand butterflies free in school. And how can you be so sure it was Lillian who orchestrated this, anyway?"

For a moment, both of them were quiet. Then Mrs. Roach and Vatakai said together, "The flowers."

Ah, the flowers. Who could forget the flowers? 

Lilly pressed her chin into the floor so hard her teeth clenched together as Vatakai continued, voice dripping poison, "Where is she? How did she even do this? Where do you even get thousands of butterflies? And how are we supposed to get all these bugs out of the school?"

The heels disappeared from Lilly's vision. Mrs. Roach mumbled something halfheartedly about making phone calls and Eldnac's honor code. The secretary moved in front of the desk, the edge of her polished shoes an inch away from Lilly's forehead. The hem of Mrs. Roach's mauve pencil skirt ended at her old blotchy calves.

As it turned out, that thought ultimately caused Lilly's downfall: Mrs. Roach has very old blotchy calves. Well, that and her vanity. If she had not been so proud of herself for pulling this off and if she had not been thinking about Mrs. Roach's calves, then she could've moved her right hand an inch to the left or perhaps contorted herself a little more, and Vatakai would not have caught her.

It happened in a second: Vatakai sat down, and a painful stiletto heel crushed Lilly's right hand.

Lilly yelped as skin burst open across her hand. Vatakai matched it with a screech of her own, shoving desk chair back and bending to look at Lilly. Lilly squeezed out from the other side of the desk.

She cradled her aching hand and was ready to make a break for it, but the headmistress didn't waste a second. As soon as Lilly was on her feet, Vatakai lurched across the desk, grabbed her upper arm, and snarled in a breathless gasp of rage, "You are in so much trouble, young lady."