Flying with the Dead

My mother is the first to tell me about the butterflies.

She has seen them – hundreds of thousands arriving in Mexico in time for the Days of the Dead. The butterflies come, and the sky turns black and orange.

Those must be the colors of the dead the world over, my mother says after her first Halloween spent up north among witches and pumpkins…

Short story in Crossed Genres Issue 24, Nov. 2010; out of print.