Lady Grey

by Amy LeBlanc

She used her tongue to her moisten her lips that flaked like the wing of a moth. I emptied tealeaves into the pot while she spoke and nodded my head at all appropriate times in her story.

“I couldn’t smell anything at all. Then I died. It happened,” she snapped her fingers, “just like that.”

She said this while running her tongue along the rim of her teacup. I’d refilled it with earl grey tea and leaves clung to her upper lip. She shook from the strain of lifting the cup towards herself and a few strands of hair loosened from the turtle clip beneath her hat. Her skin draped across her bones, loosening when she spoke, and tightening when she was quiet.

“It was the sea birds that finally killed me—damn greedy things. I just lay there with my sun hat blown off and my dress lifting up in the wind. They pecked and pecked and pecked until there was nothing left of me. When I woke

back in my body, the birds had gone and my sunhat had been torn into a pile of shredded straw beside me. I’d swear to it on a stack of bibles if you asked me to. That’s exactly how it happened.”

“More tea?”“Please.”

She handed me her cup as she said, “We must do something about these moths.”

The moths she spoke of had buried into our walls during the hottest weeks of summer. She called them an infestation, but I called them a gathering. Their silken wings were drawn to the light of the oil lamp on her bedside table, which she kept above a stack of books. I think they came for the light, but found the house too comfortable to consider leaving.

I poured more tea as she tucked the loose strands of hair back under the brim of her hat. She never took the hat off; I think she was insecure about the state the birds had left her in. I believe her, but sea birds are more likely to scoop mackerel from the surface than they are to peck at her head below her hat. I wanted to tell her that the bergamot in earl grey tea was added to offset the taste of lime-laden water in 1800s England (the cornflower and vanilla came later). I wanted to tell her that the moths she speaks of are formidable mimics. They pretend to look like less palatable insects to avoid being eaten. They’re really no bother. I wanted to tell her that ravens can live for forty-five years, which is longer than she lived before the birds finished her off.

Two moths fluttered towards us. One moth landed on the edge of her hat and one descended to the table in front of her. She hit the table, this time releasing numerous strands from the turtle clip, while the force jolted the china cups from their saucers and knocked the ladyfingers to the floor.

“I’ve got you.”

When she lifted her hand—the flattened body of a moth clung to the tablecloth, wrinkled and speckled like poplar leaves, its wings turned to dust beside the body.