The Butterfly Garden

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness and death, death by suicide, sexual violence and harassment, rape, and suicidal ideation.

By the next morning, another of the girls has died in the hospital, but the rest—13, in all—are expected to live. Senator Kingsley’s daughter has refused, for now, to see her mother, insisting on seeing Inara first. The agents continue their questioning of Inara, who says she’s not surprised that her housemates in New York never reported her missing to the police. She says that children of neglect, like herself, get used to never being thought of or remembered. She cites Sophia as an example of a devoted mother; though her two children are often in the care of the state, they know that their mother will always fight to get them back.

Inara describes the first time she saw Desmond, the Gardener’s younger son. Fighting boredom in the long, seasonless months of her captivity, she often scales the cliff to explore the Garden’s high places, particularly a clump of trees where she can peer through the glass wall into the outer garden without being seen. Sometimes she can see, far below, the Gardener’s family strolling through the greenhouse: the Gardener, his sickly-looking wife, his murderous son Avery, and another young man who appears to be in his late teens. This younger son seems, from what she can see, to be his mother’s favorite. One day, Inara thinks the Gardener has spotted her looking down at them.

Inara now backtracks to tell the story of Johanna, who joined the Garden about four months after her own arrival. Inara agrees to act as her comforter and guide, as Lyonette is sick with the flu. At first, Inara has difficulty finding a gentle, soothing tone, and Lyonette has to coach her from her sickbed. Johanna, ultimately, does not adjust to her new life, and shortly drowns herself in the pond. Not long afterward, Lyonette turns 21 and is murdered, and Inara moves permanently into the role of “guide.” Owing to what happened to Johanna, she tries to be more consoling and patient with newcomers.

Weeks later, a new arrival who is Black develops an allergic reaction to the first stages of her tattoo, and the Gardener is forced to give up on her. Girls who don’t get their full wings, he says, are not displayed but are given a decent “burial” elsewhere on his estate. As he mournfully caresses the doomed girl’s unconscious body, the Gardener confronts Inara about “watching” his family. Instead of being angry, he seems a little amused but shows relief when Inara assures him that she won’t tell anyone about seeing his family. His wife, he says, has a weak heart, and their strolls in the outer greenhouse are good for her health. 

She and her younger son, he says, know nothing about the Garden; Desmond is “very different” from Avery, he adds. He goes on to say that she, Inara, seems quite different from the other Butterflies, mostly in her self-possession, generosity, and inscrutability. Inara reflects to herself that her main distinction is that she has never cried—not since being left on the carousel at age six. The Gardener asks her to request something of him, and she asks for him to remove his cameras from the cave where she conducts her private, consoling talks with other Butterflies. This unselfish answer charms and arouses the Gardener, who then proceeds to force himself on her.

The agents try to steer the conversation back to Desmond and his culpability. Instead, Inara recounts a conversation she had with Bliss on the cliff, in which she dissuades her friend from jumping. Bliss, unlike Inara, had a happy life and suffers more acutely from her lonely, limbo-like imprisonment. The most well-loved of Bliss’s handmade clay figures are clearly modeled on her lost family. As the girls talk about their pasts, they notice the flicker of a flashlight in the dusk below. A figure, all dressed in black, is sneaking around the Garden. Inara immediately guesses it to be Desmond, the Gardener’s younger son. Inara is caught between her hope that Desmond will discover the dead girls in glass and call the police, and her fear that the Gardener will find out about his intrusion and blame her and Bliss for not telling him. Finally, she chooses the less risky option, and runs to warn the Gardener.

Recognizing the intruder as Desmond, the Gardener uses his remote-control device to lower all the Garden’s walls, sealing off the girls’ rooms and hiding the display cases. However, Inara and Bliss, who are not in their rooms, are trapped “outside” with the angry father and his son. The latter nervously tells his father that he saw Avery uncover the punch-pad of what looked like a secret door in the greenhouse, and so he came to investigate on his own. He easily guessed the code because Avery only uses three codes for everything. Now he demands to know why his father has kept this inner greenhouse a big secret from him. Reluctantly, the Gardener agrees, but first swears Desmond to utter secrecy. With a sinking feeling, Inara intuits that Desmond reveres his father and wants to make him proud. Up close, she sees that he has slender “musician’s hands,” and mostly resembles his dark-haired mother. She considers sharing the full truth with this innocent-looking boy, telling him to call the police, but again decides that it’s not worth the risk: The Gardener might have some means of killing her and the other Butterflies all at once, e.g., with poison gas. He might even kill his own son, to silence him.

Unexpectedly, the Gardener introduces the two of them, saying that Desmond goes to Washington College and that Inara lives here in the “inner garden.” Casually, he tells his nonplussed son that he and Avery rescue unhoused girls by giving them a new life here, in this sylvan paradise. By no means, however, should Desmond tell his mother, whose health might suffer from the news. To Inara’s disgust, Desmond seems to believe him. Inara wonders if Desmond will be too entrenched to defy his father by the time he learns the truth. After Desmond leaves, the Gardener seems unusually amorous—perhaps excited to have inducted his younger son into part of his secrets. Repeatedly, he forces himself on Inara. When Victor expresses amazement that Desmond would believe his father’s explanation, Inara states, “Those who want to believe something badly enough generally do” (131).

Meanwhile, Avery has been on his best behavior around Inara, owing to his father’s threats that whatever harm he inflicts on her will be done to himself. However, he remains fascinated by her, as a forbidden (and therefore desirable) pleasure. One day, he secures permission from the Gardener to take her into his private “playroom.” Expecting nothing worse than the usual sexual assault, Inara obeys. However, after tying her up, Avery brands her on the hip with a red-hot iron, laughing, “Happy anniversary, you arrogant bitch” (133). Afterward, the Gardener apologizes profusely, and promises that Avery will never touch her again. He dismantles Avery’s playroom, but does not ban him from the Garden for good, as the pleasures of the Garden are the only “leash” he has on his uncontrollable son. Now, Inara shows the agents her seared hip and the brand Avery gave her, which is of a butterfly.

For two weeks, the Gardener takes Desmond on tightly controlled tours of the Garden, not letting him see the dead girls or any of the live ones besides Inara and Bliss, whom he has provided with new, backed dresses that hide their butterfly tattoos. Inara suspects that he wants to introduce Desmond to the Garden’s secrets very gradually, so as to normalize them, slowly winning him over. Cautiously, she plays the part he expects of her, not telling his son anything about herself or her past.