Geometric moth on a shoulder blade

Cosmo, our last strongman, caught one in his cap and carried it to me like a coin. Its wings were grey velvet, dusted with eyes, and along the lower edges they hardened into points, clear as the glass pendants we had sold off in March. 'It's cut itself a new set of jewels,' he said. I told him moths do not own jewels, and he told me that was exactly why they wanted them.

We had nothing left to sell but the costumes and the tent itself. Each night I sat on the empty bleachers with the moth resting on my knee, counting the stipples on its wing the way my mother used to count the takings, and tried to decide whether a creature that lives on dust could be worth more than the ring we leased.

On the last night of the season, it lifted from my knee and climbed the rope ladder into the dark roof, where the rigging lamp had finally gone out. I heard nothing, only the canvas settling. In the morning the light came in grey through the seams and the crystal tips caught it, scattering thin green across the sawdust. Abernethy stood in the entrance a long time without speaking. Then he laughed, properly, for the first time since Hull, and went to find the broom.