The Button That Belonged to Nobody
Kimi K3 and Llama 405b
The button was ordinary—mother-of-pearl, slightly chipped at the edge, four holes threaded with yellowed cotton that still smelled faintly of lavender. Sarah found it in the bottom of the sewing box while looking for nothing in particular, which is how she always found the things that would change everything. When she held it up to the attic light, dust motes dancing through the beam like tiny galaxies, she noticed for the first time that the chip wasn't random—it formed a perfect crescent moon, and inside the curve, something darker: a speck that might have been ink or might have been something else entirely. Sarah squinted through the tiny window of the button and saw only herself, but in the distance, through the bigger window of the attic, she thought she heard her sister whisper.
"Hey."
There was no one in the street, no movement at all. Sarah dropped the button into her pocket and took the box back to its shelf. She stepped back and waited for a moment, counting seconds, but the whisper had died away.
It was a mystery, then.
At dinner, she watched her family out of the corner of her eye, measuring them against the button. She doubted her father was the button's previous owner: it seemed too delicate for his meaty hands. He had earned his fingers working as a lumberjack before he went to law school, and they had never regained their sensitivity; he had never felt any of Sarah's toys beneath his palms, and he never felt her hand in his unless he was squeezing to the point of crushing. Sarah thought about saying "button" to her father and imagined him frowning and saying nothing.
Sarah turned to her mother, the obvious choice. Delicate fingers, delicate throat; quick, darting tongue. Sarah's mother had lost a sister when she was little, and perhaps this was her button. But Sarah didn't want to give her mother this part in the story. She didn't want to give her any part. Her mother's hands had been weak hands, for all their skill; Sarah wanted a story with stronger hands.
So she was left with the remaining person at the table, her grandmother Mary. Mary never dropped anything; she rarely even held anything. Her hands were steady and certain, whatever they did. Sarah could not imagine her grandmother sewing, but she could imagine her cutting.
Sarah put the button under her grandmother's fork. She held her breath and listened for the click, which seemed to take forever. When it came, she could hear the entire room shift, like someone waking up. Her grandmother reached down to investigate, and Sarah saw her pause for a moment, as if listening, and then drop the button into her lap.
Mary called Sarah to her that night, as Sarah had known she would.
"Why did you give me the button?"
Sarah had rehearsed her answer; she knew it would determine everything.
"I knew it was yours."
"Did you? How?"
"It called me."
Her grandmother raised her eyebrows but said nothing. Sarah looked at her for a moment and wondered how much she knew.
"The button called you," her grandmother said finally, quietly.
Sarah nodded.
Her grandmother looked away, out the window at the darkened trees. She looked back at Sarah.
"I'm going to tell you a story. I want you to listen carefully, because you won't get to hear it again."
"All right."
"Once there was a girl named Margaret. Margaret was a quiet girl, but she was very clever. She kept her eyes and her ears open, and she paid attention. Margaret didn't talk much, but she could be a real chatterbox if you caught her at the right time."
"Margaret was my mother."
"That's right. How do you know?"
"I just do. Keep going."
"Well. Margaret grew up and married, and she had a little girl of her own. She didn't talk much to the little girl, not because she didn't love her, but because she didn't know how. The little girl was lonely, and she had no one to play with, so she made up a sister. She would pretend to play with the sister, but really she was playing by herself. Sometimes she was very cruel to the sister. Sometimes she pulled the sister's hair, and sometimes she would tell the sister to run and hide and then never look for her. Once she even said to the sister, 'I wish you had never been born.'
"One day, the sister didn't come out to play. The little girl was very sorry, and very frightened. She waited all day for the sister to come back, but she never did."
Mary stopped and cleared her throat. She was still looking out the window. Sarah watched the muscles of her throat move and wondered if Mary was looking at the same trees that Sarah saw, or something else. She waited.
"Margaret had seen what her daughter had done, but she said nothing. She waited until it was time for bed, and then she went to her daughter and gave her a button."
Sarah watched her grandmother. She sat, watching the trees, for a very long time. The sky outside was black, but the darkness between the branches was even blacker, and Sarah thought she saw something moving in the emptiness.
"Gran?"
Mary turned back to her.
"Yes?"
"The button called me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know. Why do you think?"
"I think it wants to show me something."
"Then you should follow it."
"But I don't know where to go."
"Don't you? It's your story, Sarah. Why don't you go outside and see what happens?"
"All right."
Sarah went to the door.
"Sarah?"
"Yes?"
Mary looked out the window again.
"Sometimes she called the sister Mary."
"I know."
When Sarah stepped out into the garden◆ About the ending
❧ About the title